From His Heart

Speaker 1

The devil is trying as hard as he can to harden your heart. But we have a solution for that. Here's Pastor Jeff Shreve.

Speaker 2

God is reaching out to people and constantly drawing and drawing and drawing by his spirit. If you say, no, no, no, no, no, finally you cross a point of no return and then you can't come because the Lord says, that's it.

I'm not speaking to you anymore. You've made your choice. You hardened your heart, hardened your heart, hardened your heart. Now I'm hard. That's what he did to Pharaoh.

Real love, real hope. From his heart.

Speaker 1

In one corner is the devil, and in the other corner is. No, wait, God is not in a corner. But the battle rages on in God versus the Devil. Welcome to From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Shreve. Thank you for joining us today as he's teaching through the book of Exodus and the series is called Faithful and Introducing the One and Only God.

Today we'll learn the details of the fourth, fifth, and sixth plagues that God sent on Egypt, which were designed to crush Pharaoh and the false gods of Egypt. Now they are in a corner with no escape. Our message today is part two of the lesson God versus the Devil. This lesson is also one of eight full messages in the series Faithful and True. The series is also our gift of thanks for your support this month of any amount.

You can find out more when you go online to fromhisheart.org. First, though, let's continue our study of the book of Exodus by turning to chapter eight and learn from the blow by blow account by Pastor Jeff about the battle between God and the devil.

Speaker 2

And so here's the question. What do we see from the next round of plagues? Three key indictments that God makes on three more gods or goddesses in Egypt. Exodus, chapter 8, verse 20. Now the Lord said to Moses, rise early in the morning and present yourself before Pharaoh as he comes out to the water and say to him, thus says the Lord. Thus says Yahweh, let my people go that they may serve me. For if you will not let my people go, behold, I will send swarms of insects on you and on your servants and on your people and into your houses. And the houses of the Egyptians shall be full of swarms of insects and also the ground on which they dwell.

Verse 24. Then the Lord did so, and there came great swarms of insects into the houses of Pharaoh and the houses of his servants. And the land was laid waste because of the swarms of insects in all the land of Egypt. First indictment. In this next plague, God is indicting their worship of flies and beetles. God makes a mockery of their worship of flies and beetles. You think how pagan these people are, that they worship flies, that they worship beetles. The scarab. Now, the goddess over the marshlands and over the flies was a goddess named Uatchet. She's over the marshlands where the insects live. And so God is going to bring insects.

Now, it says a swarm of flies, but it's more than just flies. You know, we think of flies. Flies are irritating, you know, and they buzz around and they land on you. But this is a different kind of fly than you're thinking of. The word swarms means mixture. God's got all sorts of stuff in there that you don't want. And a very interesting little play on words where he says in verse 20, thus says the Lord, let my people go that they may serve me. For if you will not let my people go, behold, if you don't release them, then I'm going to release my swarms on you.

Now, the interesting thing about this plague, this plague was designed to show who is God and who belongs to God, because this is what Moses told Pharaoh beginning in verse 22. But on that day, I will set apart the land of Goshen. That's where the Hebrews lived, the land of Goshen, where my people are living, so that no swarms of insects will be there. In order that you may know that I, the Lord, am in the midst of the land, and I will put a division between my people and your people. Tomorrow this sign shall occur.

Oh, you worship Uatchet, who is over all the insects? Well, she's going to be powerless to help you, because I'm going to send insects like you've never seen before. And I make the distinction between my people and Pharaoh. Your people? And this is my land. You might think this is your land, but I'm in the midst of the land, and I make the rules around here, Pharaoh. So the plague showed who is God and who belongs to God.

And this is interesting. The plague was countered with a demonic compromise. A demonic compromise. Now remember, Pharaoh is a picture of the devil. So this is what happens. These swarms are bad. And this gets Pharaoh's attention. And so verse 25, and Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron and said, go sacrifice to your God within the land. But Moses said, it's not right to do so, for we shall sacrifice to the Lord our God. What is an abomination to the Egyptians? If we sacrifice what is an abomination to the Egyptians before their eyes, will they not stone us?

We can't sacrifice bulls and goats before the Egyptians. They see that as an abomination and that's going to start a riot. He says in verse 27, we must go a three days journey into the wilderness and sacrifice to the Lord our God as he commands us. And Pharaoh said, I will let you go that you may sacrifice to the Lord your God in the wilderness only you shall not go very far away. Make supplication for me. Then Moses said, behold, I am going out from you and I shall make supplication to the Lord that the swarms of insects may depart from Pharaoh, from his servants, and from his people tomorrow. Only do not deal deceitfully again in not letting the people go to sacrifice to the Lord.

Verse 31. And the Lord did as Moses asked and removed the swarms of insects from Pharaoh, from his servants and from his people. Not one remained. But Pharaoh hardened his heart this time also, and he did not let the people go.

Hey, in the Christian life, if you compromise and you live out your Christian life in the land, so to speak, spiritually in the land, you're not obeying the Lord because the Lord says, 2 Corinthians, chapter 6, verse 17. Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. You're salt and light. What are we as Christians? God saves us out of this world and he sends us back to this world as his citizens, as his ambassadors, to be a witness in this world. And that's our only business in the world. And when the world starts to become the church starts to become like the world and they can't see a difference, that's a big, big problem. Compromise will wreck and ruin your testimony.

Second indictment. Not only does God make a mockery of their worship of the flies and the beetles, but God makes a mockery of their worship of livestock. Chapter nine. Then the Lord said to Moses, go to Pharaoh and speak to him. Thus says the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, Let my people go that they may serve me. For if you refuse to let them go and continue to hold them, behold, the hand of the Lord will come with a very severe pestilence on your livestock, which are in the field, on the horses, on the donkeys, on the camels, on the herds and on the flocks.

But the Lord will make a distinction between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of Egypt, so that nothing will die of all that belongs to the sons of Israel. And the Lord set a definite time saying, tomorrow the Lord will do this thing in the land that is to preclude any kind of coincidence. God would tell them when this is coming. So the Lord did this thing on the morrow, and all the livestock of Egypt died. All the livestock in the field, like he said, not all the livestock, as some weren't in the field, but all those in the field. But of the livestock of the sons of Israel, not one died. And Pharaoh sent. And behold, there was not even one of the livestock of Israel dead. But the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and he did not let the people go.

You know that Egypt worshiped the bull, as one of their big idols was the bull Aphas. And you've seen that probably in Egyptian pictures and things. Aphas. They also had a God named Manevas, and he had a bull face. They worshiped the bull because the bull to them was a mark of strength and a mark of fertility. And when, you know the way that wealth was counted in that time period, it's not how much money do you have in the bank. Wealth was counted by how much you had in the field, your flocks and your herds. If you had lots of flocks and herds, you were wealthy.

And so this plague is going to hit their wealth and their worship. And God is going to kill the livestock to show that he is God in the land, he is over all things. And God is hitting Egypt at the point of their wealth. Now, this is a bad plague, the pestilence. It's a very severe plague because all of their animals start dying and the horses die. Now they need the horses for military might, and they need the animals for their farming and for their food. And so it is really critical when this plague comes, and it hits them at the point of their wealth and the point of their worship.

And this plague reminds us to never worship the idol of wealth. God hates that. We had that show. I guess it's still running. American Idol. The American Idol is to find the best singer. But hey, the American Idol. What is the American Idol? It's money. Americans worship money. By and large, we worship money. And the Lord says this. No one can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. You can't do it. You're trying to serve God in wealth. You're saying, well, you know, money's really, really important. I know money's important because you have to have money to live. But money better not ever take the place of God. They worshiped wealth, and God is destroying that false God. He makes a mockery of their worship of the livestock, which was a worship of wealth.

And then indictment number three. God makes a mockery of the worship of health and healing. Pharaoh doesn't budge. He says he's going to budge on the swarms. He doesn't. He reneges. His heart is hard. And then it says again, his heart is hard. But the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and he did not let the people go, even though the pestilence is killing the livestock.

Verse 8. Then the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, take for yourselves handfuls of soot from kiln and let Moses throw it toward the sky in the sight of Pharaoh. They're not talking to Pharaoh about anything. They're just doing this. And it will become fine dust over all the land of Egypt and will become boils breaking out with sores on man and beast through all the land of Egypt. So they took soot from a kiln and stood before Pharaoh, and Moses threw it toward the sky, and it became boils breaking out with sores on man and beast.

The Egyptians had a God, a God of medicine, a God of healing. His name was Imhotep. If you watch the mummy, you know they used that name, Imhotep. Well, he was a really important God to them. They also had another God, actually, a goddess of the sky. Her name was Nut. And so what does Moses do? He takes handfuls of soot and he throws it up into the sky, right in the face of Nut. And he calls out, Imhotep, what are you going to do about it? And boils break out over all the Egyptians.

Now, you mark it down. The boils were painful and unrelenting. Now it's bad to have the swarms come into your house. I mean, nobody likes the video that we saw where they're coming in. And it's hard to breathe because you're just surrounded by swarms. But, you know, you can try and escape that. You can wrap yourself in a blanket and get away from the swarms. When the boils came, you can't get away from that. They hit all the Egyptians. And the word in Hebrew, boil means to burn. These things were really painful, and they were disgusting, and they oozed pus.

We know about Job. Job, when God let down the hedge and the devil came at Job, what did he come at him with? First he came to steal his wealth and steal his children. And then he came to his body. And God says, you can touch everything in his life except don't kill him. And so he came at him and struck him with sore boils from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet. And what did Job do? He was sitting in the ashes, scraping himself with a broken piece of pottery, trying to alleviate the itching and scraping away the pus.

Hey, boils are awful. And these guys are filled with boils, painful and unrelenting. And the boils humiliated the magicians because it says in verse 11. And the magicians, these are Pharaoh's priests. They could not stand before Moses because of the boils. For the boils were on the magicians as well as on all the Egyptians. You got to remember, okay, the God of the Hebrews, they're slaves, is going up against Pharaoh and the gods of Egypt. They're the most powerful nation on the earth. Well, how is the God of the Hebrew slaves going to fight against Pharaoh and the gods of Egypt? And how is he going to handle the priests of Pharaoh?

So those guys were trying to keep up. Hey, we can turn our stabs into snakes. We can cause the water to turn. I don't know what they did, how they did it. If God allowed that to happen, that was real, or if it was just a trick. Hey, we can cause frogs to come up, but they couldn't do the gnats. And they told Pharaoh, this is the finger of God. We can't keep up now. And they're getting ready to get blown away, because when the pestilence came, they had no answer for that. And the swarms, they had no answer for that. But now these guys that pride themselves on purity, you know, they would wash themselves several times a day. They would wear white linen. They shaved all the hair off their body to be pure. And now they're covered in boils. And they can't stand before Moses because of the humiliation.

Interestingly, we don't read about the magicians again. They're so humiliated, they're so routed, they don't show their faces again. God uses that to show how ridiculous these guys were. And then the boils, very important. Mark the point of no return. Look what it says in verse 12. And the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he did not listen to them. Just as the Lord had spoken to Moses, you say, yeah, it's been saying that a lot. This is the very first time that it actually says, then God hardened his heart.

God says he was going to harden Pharaoh's heart. He hasn't hardened it yet? Not until chapter 9, verse 12. We read about seven references to Pharaoh hardening his own heart. And then once Pharaoh hardened his own heart seven times, then God says, fine, now I'm gonna solidify your choice. You made your choice. You don't want to let my people go. All right, then that's your choice. And now you're locked into that choice. You have crossed the point of no return.

It's a dangerous thing to hit the point of no return. It's a horrifying thing when God says, now I'm hardening your heart. Because once God hardens your heart, you're done. You're doomed. There's nothing that you can do. Jesus said in John, chapter six, no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. You know, we talk in the New Testament, Matthew, chapter 12. Jesus introduced the subject of the unpardonable sin, the unforgivable sin. And he accused the religious leaders of coming dangerously close to committing the unpardonable sin.

You say, what is the unpardonable sin? The unpardonable sin is when God convicts your heart. When God opens your eyes, when the evidence is overwhelming and you know in your heart that the Lord, he is God, the Lord, he is God, and you need him. And you say, no, and you harden your heart in the face of unbelievable, overwhelming evidence. God says, all right, well, then there's nothing else I can do to reach you. You have made your choice. And now I'm not going to speak to you anymore.

No one can come to me, Jesus said, unless the Father who sent me draws him. Did you know the Bible repeats this in Second Thessalonians chapter 2? People are all the time wondering, hey, during the tribulation period, who are the ones who get saved? Because we believe that the rapture of the Church comes before the tribulation and then the tribulation period. And people are always saying, well, there are going to be a lot of people that heard about the Rapture. And when they're left behind, man, they're just going to trust Christ like crazy. I don't see that. I don't think that's going to happen.

2 Thessalonians, chapter 2, beginning in verse 9. The one who's coming is in accord with the activity of Satan with all power and signs and false wonders and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish. Why? Because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. That's why people perish. They don't receive God's love so as to be saved. And then it says this. And for this reason, God will send upon them a deluding influence. This isn't Satan doing this anymore. This is God doing it. He sends upon them a deluding influence so that they might believe what is false.

Why would God want that? In order that they all may be judged well, why would God want that? Who did not believe the truth but took pleasure in wickedness? God is reaching out to people and constantly drawing and drawing and drawing by his spirit. If you say, no, no, no, no, no, finally you cross a point of no return. And then you can't come because the Lord says, that's it. I'm not speaking to you anymore. You've made your choice. You hardened your heart. Hardened your heart. Hardened your heart. Harden your heart. Harden your heart. Harden your heart. Harden your heart. Now I'm hardening your heart. That's what he did to Pharaoh.

The song says, if you'll take one step toward the Savior, my friend, you'll find his arms open wide. But if you don't and you reject him and you choose your sin and your selfishness and your selfish ways over the Son of God, he will one day turn you over and you will be lost forever. You can live another 30 years on this earth, but you'll be lost forever. And he won't speak to you anymore. So today, if you hear his voice, harden not your heart. Behold, today is the day of salvation.

Speaker 1

Hey, has today's broadcast made you aware of some hardening that may be going on in your heart? Do you want to soften those hard spots and allow Christ to come in and save you for now and for eternity? You can do that. We invite you to go to fromisheart.org and click the "Why Jesus" link to find answers, resources, and encouragement to help you know that you can be saved no matter what you may have done, that God does love you beyond what you could even imagine. Again, go to fromisheart.org and click the "Why Jesus" link today.

If you've been a Christian for a long time, you know that being a Christian means accepting the task to tell people about Jesus. Because that's what you and I are all about. In fact, we want to do that knowing the love that Jesus has shown for us. One way we do that is by helping ministries like From His Heart. There are many to proclaim that good news to places that you'd never be able to get into yourself. When you support From His Heart, you are extending your influence for Christ around the world on radio, television, and online.

Pastor Jeff receives no income from this ministry. He is our Chief Volunteer, and this month we'd like to say thanks for your gift of any amount by sending you Pastor Jeff's powerful eight-message series, "Faithful and True: Introducing the One and Only God." This series is available on CDs, DVDs, a USB drive, or MP3. Download your choice to get this life-changing series by calling 866-40-BIBLE (866-40-BIBLE) or going to fromhisheart.org. Request the "Faithful and True" series when you make your gift today. Thank you for joining us in this mission to share real truth, real love, and real hope around the world.

Also, thank you for joining us today on From His Heart. I'm Larry Nelbles, encouraging you to be with us on Thursday when Pastor Jeff continues our journey through the Book of Exodus. He'll show us that God is faithful and true to see us through the toughest storms. Be with us next time for the message, "When Bad Gets Worse," when Pastor Jeff Shreve will open up God's Word and share real truth, real love, reality, and real hope from His heart.

Speaker 2

From the Soul.

Speaker 1

From His Heart is the listener-supported broadcast ministry of Dr. Jeff Shreve, speaking the truth in love to a lost and hurting world.

Remember that no matter what, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.

Find out about that. Go to fromisheart.org.