Sugar Land Bible Church

Dr. Andy Woods: Before our junior church program, let's take our Bibles this morning and open them to acts, not Acts. Let's study Acts, forget Exodus. Exodus chapter eight and verse 16. Looking this morning at verses 16 through 19. The title of our message this morning is The Finger of God. The finger of God.

And as you're turning there, our thoughts and prayers go out this morning to all of the victims of the latest shooting in Rhode Island and also in Sydney, Australia. It doesn't look like our world's getting better and better, does it? That's a great reminder we need to have our faith in Christ. Amen.

Well, we're continuing our movement ever so slowly through the book of Exodus where God is redeeming a nation. He has built the instrument that he will use, this man Moses, who was a regular person with the same insecurities and hang-ups that the rest of us have, which always makes me feel better because I say to the Lord, if you're looking for insecure people with hang-ups, that means I can apply for the position because God works with us in our weaknesses.

But that process is complete and now God is bringing forth the ten judgments on the Egyptian Empire with the purpose of releasing his people from the Egyptian bondage that they have been in for 400 years through the hands of a Pharaoh that knew not Joseph. We've seen the Nile turn to blood, judgment number one. We've seen the multiplication of frogs all over Egypt, and now we're going to study gnats and next week flies.

See, if you were in a normal church, they'd be talking about Christmas time, manger scenes. What did you guys do at Sugar Land Bible Church? Well, we learned about gnats and flies. How about that? So, as we take a look at this judgment of gnats, here's an outline that we're going to follow today as we study the finger of God. The finger of God, as you'll see, is something that only God can do.

So, notice first of all verse 16. God gives some instructions to Moses. It says in verse 16, "The Lord said to Moses, 'Say to Aaron, "Stretch out your staff and strike the dust of the earth, that it may become gnats throughout all the land of Egypt."'" So these are instructions from God to Moses for Aaron, brothers to brothers, two people in their eighties that God is using.

And notice that when this judgment strikes, it's going to move from dust to gnats. Something non-living to something living. Now, this is different than the prior judgments that we've studied. The first one was the Nile to blood. That's something non-living, I guess we could say, into something also that's non-living, inanimate to inanimate. And then God did this miracle, this judgment with the frogs, where living things were multiplied. So that's living to living. Judgment number one, non-living to non-living.

Now we have living to living, and now it's different. See how God is up the game here? We're going to move from something that is non-living like dust and then we're going to turn it into something living like a gnat, kind of like Genesis chapter one where God spoke and the heavens and the earth as we know it leaped into existence. And by the time you get outside of Genesis one, God did what is called an *ex nihilo* creation, something out of nothing to the point where the earth was a world that could be inhabited by humans that God brought into existence on day six along with all of the other things that God created. It started with nothing and it became something. A god can do that, and here is not the same miracle. This is something that is non-living into living.

So what does the Bible mean when it talks about dust becoming gnats? Dr. Ed Hindson says exactly which pesky flying insect is meant is unclear. Choices include lice, gnats, mosquitoes, or sandflies. So pick your poison. It was one of these things that God would create out of mere dust.

And so one of the things to understand is that all of these judgments are designed to attack, to mock an Egyptian deity. The Egyptians, as you see from the right-hand side of the screen, worshipped the Nile, and God turned it to blood red. Egyptians worshipped frogs. God says, "If you like frogs so much, I'll multiply them all over the land of Egypt." And now, as you can see, gnats are designed to ridicule a particular Egyptian deity called Set.

And so Dr. Ed Hindson writes this: "The Egyptian deities challenged by the third plague would have been Set, the desert god, and the fly-like Uatchit, I think is how you pronounce that, whose function was to divinely protect Egypt from insect swarms." I guess he's not doing a very good job, this god. It was also a successful swipe at the Egyptian priesthood who, concerned with maintaining ritual purity, frequently shaved themselves of all body hair to avoid lice. "You guys are doing such a good job getting rid of lice that I'm going to multiply lice or gnats all over the land of Egypt."

And so what you see here is something within the character of God where God goes after deliberately the very things that people worship instead of him. The book of Isaiah, chapter 42 and verse eight, God says that, "I am the Lord, that is my name; I will not give my glory to another, nor my praise to graven images." What is an idol? An idol is something, it could really be anything, that we look to for safety, security, something that gives us meaning, something that gives us value or self-worth. And I'm here to tell you folks that if you've got something like that in your life, God is going after it. That's God's nature.

One of the biggest idols that we have, particularly here in North America, is money or wealth. Money can do a lot of things for you, but it can't replace God in your life. Jesus talked about this in Matthew chapter six, verse 24. He said, "No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. You cannot serve God and money." That's a pretty exclusive statement there.

The Bible doesn't condemn money. The issue with possessions is not "do you have possessions," but "do your possessions possess you?" That's the issue. Once those things are looked at as "this is where my hope lies, this is where my safety lies, this is where my security lies, this is where my self-image comes from," then God has declared war on that very thing in our lives.

There are all kinds of idols that God in my life has been very successful at waging war against. An idol could be anything. It could be a retirement account. It could be health. It could be some kind of relationship that you have, some kind of success that you have. And those things in and of themselves are not a problem. The problem is when they move into that position of preeminence in our lives and our whole life suddenly revolves around that thing.

Suddenly we find ourselves living outside of our design. And you can't be fulfilled as an idolater because God didn't design us to worship idols. He designed us for a relationship with himself. And as we become idolaters, we think of idolatry as just a graven image or a statue. An idol is far bigger than that. It's a heart issue.

Jesus said in Matthew six, "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." And so we would ask ourselves, where is our hearts today? And if we erect something in the place of God, God has the right to declare war on those things. He'll do it for a whole culture like Egypt if necessary. He'll do it also as he wants our hearts to be right in the body of Christ.

So that's God's instructions to Moses. And wisely, Moses and Aaron do exactly what God tells them to do. Verse 17, it says they did so. And Aaron stretched out his hand with his staff and struck the dust of the earth, and there were gnats on man and beast. All the dust of the earth became gnats throughout all the land of Egypt.

So you'll notice that God has brought Moses and Aaron to the point where whatever God says, they do it. Moses particularly 40 years earlier wasn't this way. He had a tendency to sort of take matters into his own hands. And God has dealt with Moses very aggressively on this issue. He's given him his BD degree, as I call it, his backside of the desert degree, where he was reduced to menial labor, caring for the sheep of his father-in-law Jethro on the backside of a desert in Midian near Mount Sinai. And God had Moses in that position for 40 years. And finally, after Moses had been emptied of Moses, was God in a position to say through the burning bush, "Now it's time to be used by God." And Moses in the final third of his life, age 80 to age 120, has the most prolific ministry a human being other than Christ himself and maybe other than the apostle Paul had, because God took Moses through that desert experience.

So if you find yourself in the desert today, rejoice, because God is preparing you for something. This is the pattern of God. And now Moses and Aaron aren't second-guessing God. They do exactly what God says. I'm reminded, and I use this frequently when I talk about this, of Christ's mother's advice rather to the stewards at the wedding of Cana of Galilee when they had run out of wine, which was socially embarrassing. And she, as Jesus' mother, and they happened to be attending this wedding, had no idea how this issue was going to get fixed. But she knew Jesus and who he was, and she makes this statement in John 2, verse 5. She says to the servants there at the wedding in Cana of Galilee, "Whatever he says to you, do it." In other words, you don't have to understand what he's saying to you. You don't have to really agree with what he's saying to you. Just do what he says and the issue will get resolved.

First Samuel 15, verse 22, says "To obey is better than sacrifice." James 1, verse 22, says "But prove yourselves doers of the word and not merely hearers who delude themselves." Spirituality is more than understanding theology, sitting under sermons, reading the Bible, reading books. I mean, that's all wonderful stuff to do, but true spirituality is obedience to the things that God has called us to do. Jesus in John 13, verse 17, to his disciples in the upper room says, "If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them." In other words, the blessing in the Christian life doesn't come from knowing these things. It comes from following through under God's power by way of obedience.

You know, this time of the year, it'll be Christmas soon and then New Year's, and then everybody gets into their New Year's resolutions, thinking about the new year. I personally am praying that the Rapture will come first, but if it doesn't and I'm here for 2026, we've got to think about New Year's resolutions. How about this one for a New Year's resolution: "Lord, in every area that I've been disobedient to you, help me this year to have a pattern of obedience." And if you don't know an area in your life where you're disobedient to the Lord, just ask him and he'll show you. He'll show you like yesterday.

And so we say to the Lord, "You know, I don't know how I'm going to obey you here. I don't have the power to do it. But you said with God all things are possible. And I'm going to just take some action steps to obey you in a certain area. And I want 2026, if you tarry, to be known for that. I'm not trying to live a perfect life, I don't think it's possible. I'm not trying to live a sinless life, I don't think that's possible either. But I sure want 2026 to be an era in which I sin less."

So obedience, and as we obey the Lord, that's where the blessing comes from. Blessed are you not just if you know these things, but as he says, if you do these things. So Moses and Aaron do what they're told. And it's taken them 40 years of desert experiences to get them to this point.

But it says in verse 17 they did so, and Aaron stretched out his hand with his staff. And look at how comprehensive this judgment is: "...and struck the dust of the earth, and there were gnats on man and beast, and all the dust of the earth became gnats throughout all the land of Egypt." This is what we would call a comprehensive judgment. This is something that subdued an entire nation.

And I'm here to tell you that God is really good at bringing comprehensive judgments. Just study the Flood, which was not, as many I think errantly teach, some kind of local or regional event, but it covered all the mountains under heaven. And if it was a local flood, then why in the world would Noah put animals on the ark? He could have just told them to move on to higher ground. And why would you put birds on the ark? I mean, they could just fly to the next mountain range, couldn't they? See, this is something that covered the entire world.

And that is how the tribulation period is going to be when it comes upon the earth. I mean, the entire ocean is going to turn blood red, we're told in Revelation 16. And there's going to be seal judgments and trumpet judgments and golden bowl of wrath judgments. And these judgments are going to be so severe that by the time you get out of Revelation 6, 25% of the world's population will be wiped out. And then by the time you get outside of Revelation 9, a remaining third of the world's population will be wiped out, which according to my old math, means by the time we hit Revelation 9, half of the world's population will be dead.

I mean, we just came out of the COVID scare where everybody is worried about, you know, .0001% of death. I mean, think of a scenario where half of the world's population will be destroyed. When I was living in the Dallas area, Town North Boulevard, there was a little Bible church on the corner. And for whatever reason, the pastor there had these relationships with some of the greats at Dallas Seminary. And I would just walk a few doors down and I could listen to Harold Hoehner preach. They had Charles Ryrie preach. And it wasn't a big crowd, just a little church with a little flock. And I was just amazed at these high-powered people would come to this church and preach. And most people know Charles Ryrie as sort of a scholar, which he is. Now he's with the Lord, so he's now a better scholar, I would say.

And the thing about Charles Ryrie that's interesting to me is he got his start in ministry as a teacher of children. He became someone who could communicate the deep things of theology in simple language because he would talk to children. In fact, he wanted to originally not be the Charles Ryrie of the Ryrie Study Bible and Ryrie's Basic Theology and long-time professor of systematic theology, but he wanted to write books for children. That's why he was such an excellent communicator.

That's a little plug here for our children's ministry, which the Lord is blessing here. If you feel called to be a teacher, teach children. Because if you can teach children, you can teach anybody. My wife, when we were at another church, she said, "We're going to teach children this semester or this quarter." And she had the whole thing set up with games and contests, and she would let me talk because she controlled the class. She gave me ten minutes to talk. And she said, "You cannot use a single big word." So I would talk for ten minutes. I know that's a shock. And these kids, I mean, they would be on the front of their seats, listening. And that's kind of how I learned to put the cookies on the bottom shelf, as the late J. Vernon McGee says. And that Sunday school program, they just loved us. I don't know how much they loved me, but they loved my wife. And they were learning more theology from us than most of the adults were learning in the church.

And so this is the kind of person that Charles Ryrie was. And so I went to the Town North Bible Church, I listened to him. He was talking about how half of the world's population is going to be destroyed. And he just held up four fingers to demonstrate it. He says, "Everybody look up here." He put his index finger down and he says, "That's Revelation 6." Then he put the middle finger down and he said, "That's Revelation 9," leaving two of four fingers. And I thought that and I said, "That's just brilliant." I mean, why go on and on about all this detail when you can illustrate something with such simplicity?

The Bible wasn't written in a way that was designed to confuse everybody. We've made it confusing, but the biblical message is very clear: God is a God who brings judgment. And when he brings judgment, according to his decree, he can do it comprehensively, as we're seeing here all over the land of Egypt. He can do it comprehensively as he did with the global flood that we read about in the book of Genesis. And he's going to do it comprehensively because there is a judgment that is coming that we need to warn people concerning.

And so you'll notice how comprehensive this judgment is as gnats appear in beast and man all over the land of Egypt. And you'll notice that God said it would happen, verse 16, and it happened. This is how God communicates. I've recommended this book many times, "Every Prophecy of the Bible" by the late John Walvoord, who documents every example in the Bible of prophecy. And he notes that these prophecies that God makes in the short term or in the long run happen exactly like God says they would happen.

Jesus in the upper room talked about this just before his death. He said to the disciples huddled there, "From now on I am telling you before it comes to pass so that when it does occur you might believe that I am He. Now I have told you before it happens," John 14:29 now, "so that when it does happen you may believe." Twice in the upper room, he says, "Look, I'm going to make a series of predictions, many of which are going to be fulfilled this week, Passion Week. And you're going to see these predictions come to pass in real-time, right down to who's going to betray me, right down to who is going to execute me, who's going to hand me over to somebody else to be executed. And when you see all this stuff happen, you're going to look back and you're going to say He's the I AM," which is a name for God.

And I continue to be convinced that this is one of the reasons why these disciples left the upper room as God used them in the foundation of the church and they were willing to die for Jesus. They knew He wasn't just an ordinary person because of this predictive capacity. This chart I've shown you before, James the son of Alphaeus was clubbed to death, Simon the Zealot was martyred, James the son of Zebedee was executed, Thaddaeus was beaten to death, Peter crucified upside down, Matthew beheaded, John fried in boiling oil. That's a stubborn guy there, he wouldn't die. But that was God's will because He wanted John to be marooned on the island of Patmos where he would receive the Book of Revelation. Philip, it mentions here all the places that they went, was tortured and crucified. Thomas went to India and he was speared to death. Bartholomew went to India and he was flayed and crucified, which is a form of death that's so disgusting I couldn't even describe it in polite company. Andrew went to Ukraine, Russia, Greece and was hanged. Keep some of these martyrdoms in mind when you think you're having a bad day in Jesus. The people that went before us paid the ultimate price to get the gospel moving our direction.

And so this is a literal fulfillment of Bible prophecy. Now watch Pharaoh's magicians try to imitate this. They make an attempt, verse 18. They don't get very far. So they draw a conclusion, verse 19, that this is the hand of God. This is the finger of God. I mean, what we're seeing here is something that only God can do.

But they first give it a shot. Notice verse 18, "The magicians tried," emphasis on tried, "with their secret arts to bring forth gnats." This is bringing forth something living from something not living. "But they could not do so, so there were gnats on man and beast."

What does this mean, their "secret arts"? Well, these are the deep things of Satan. There is a reservoir of power in the realm of the fallen angelic kingdom. When Jesus addressed the church at Thyatira, a compromised church in the book of Revelation chapter two, verse 24, he says, "But I say to the rest of you who are in Thyatira who do not hold to this teaching, who have not known," listen to this, "the deep things of Satan, as they call them, I place no other burden on you." Notice that there are the deep things of Satan.

I mean, we use this analogy all of the time. There's the milk of the word, there's the meat of the word. The Bible is written in a way so that a child can understand it, but it's also written in a way that the most learned theologians that have ever walked the face of the earth can drown in it. That's how the Bible is written. There are things in the Bible that are milk, there are things in the Bible that are meat. There are deeper truths that you have to sort of wrestle with in hopes of coming to some human understanding of. Election versus Free Will. I mean, who can understand that? I can't understand that, but there it is in Scripture. It's a tension between two. There's a choice God makes and there's a choice we make. There's a choice we make and there's a choice God makes. Well, pastor, can you unravel that for us? No way. I mean, not only is it above my pay grade to do something like that, but it's way above my intellectual abilities. I mean, that's something that is deep.

And if Satan, of course, is the great imitator of God, wouldn't he have the deep things of Satan? The path that supposedly Illuminati or the Enlightened are on to reach Nirvana or truth. I mean, you get into some of these subjects like the complexities of Scientology which has a dominant influence over so many of our stars and starlets in Hollywood and things like that. I mean, that's a deep subject. I mean, that's a subject you've got to really sit under gurus to comprehend and to understand. And that doesn't come as any great shock to me because God has deep things, deeper things, I would say. Satan being an imitator of God for his disciples would have these deeper subjects as well.

And you know what? These things that people tap into can work. I like to watch solve-em type mystery shows. I can't tell you the number of shows that I've watched recently where there's a case that's cold and they suddenly have a lead 20 years later. How these people are sort of normalizing talking to psychics and suddenly there's this vision of light that sheds light on a whole murder mystery and the bad guy gets captured. And people look at that and it's sort of rolled out as something that's normal today. You look at that and the first thing you say is, "Well, it can't be real, it must be fake." But in a lot of these situations, I don't think it's fake at all. I think it's possible to tap into the dark side to get supernatural assistance.

The problem is people don't understand the price tag. Satan comes to steal, kill, and destroy. You start tapping into the dark side to fix what looks like is good on planet earth, solving a cold case or something like that. How do those people end up? I mean, what's the state of their health, physically and emotionally, over the long run? You give Satan an inch and he'll take a mile. And he'll use it just like cheese on a mouse trap. He'll bring you in and suddenly you can check in, as the song goes, I won't be singing that for you here, but you can check in but you can't check out. And it takes a work of God to get you out of that system.

But the Bible is filled with miracles. God is not the only author of miracles in Scripture. God obviously is the most prominent, most powerful author of miracles, but I've shared this slide with you. Here are the many miracles that happen in Scripture that God has absolutely nothing to do with. And you ask yourself, where did these miracles come from if God is not behind them? The answer is right there in verse 18: the secret arts, the so-called deep things of Satan.

Just because a miracle happens doesn't mean God authored it. Because the devil himself performs miracles. As we're going to see, he obviously doesn't have the same power God has. However, he is able to roll out, he is able to perform, he is able to pacify the curiosity of people concerning miracles. I mean, the first two plagues: God turned the Nile to blood, Pharaoh's magicians did the exact same thing. Second plague: God multiplied frogs all over the land of Egypt and Pharaoh's magicians did the exact same thing. We've seen a situation where Pharaoh's magicians could imitate, duplicate, or mimic the miracles of God.

Now, it is interesting that they could never reverse what God did. Nile to blood, they can't say, "Okay, let's do a U-turn and turn it back." Frogs multiplying all over the land of Egypt, "Let's do a U-turn and let's shrink the frogs all over the land of Egypt." They couldn't do that, but they could imitate up to a point. Ed Hindson in his Exodus commentary writes, "Again, the question may be posed why they, that's the Egyptian magicians, would attempt to create more lice or gnats instead of seeking to exercise some manner of divine fumigation power." They didn't bring relief. They couldn't reverse a judgment, but they could imitate it up to a point.

Well, look at this. They can't do it anymore. Once things move from non-life to life, they can't duplicate that. And that's why they're going to say in a minute, "This is the finger of God." I mean, what we're walking here only God can do. And although we are dialed into all of these occultic powers and phenomena, God can't be imitated here. This is the finger of God.

So Satan has a tremendous reservoir of power, but he doesn't have as much power as God. There are two mistakes that people make relative to Satan. They either underestimate him or they overestimate him. They act like he can't do anything. Well, he can do a lot of things. In fact, the Book of Revelation chapter 12, I think it's verse 9, says the whole world walks under his deception. First John 5 and verse 19 says the world lies in the lap of the wicked one. Lewis Sperry Chafer says the imagery there is like a mother rocking her newborn to sleep. First John 5, verse 19: here's the entire world under Satan's power just being rocked to sleep. Satan has tremendous power.

So don't underestimate him, but don't put him on the level of God. He has a lot of power relative to you and relative to me, but he's no contest for God. In fact, we know that this whole cosmic battle, this whole angelic struggle that we're in, is a done deal. We know who's going to win this. No questions asked. Because the prophet Ezekiel said something about Satan in Ezekiel 28, verse 13 and verse 15. Ezekiel said of Satan, "On the day you were created," verse 15, "you were blameless in your ways from the day you were created until unrighteousness rather was found in you." The moment Ezekiel disclosed that Satan is a created being is the moment we know that this battle's over. Because as a created being, he doesn't possess the omnis that God has.

What are the omnis? I'm not talking about a hotel. Omniscient: all-knowing. Omnipresent: everywhere at once. Omnipotent: all-powerful. Satan possesses none of those things. That's why he has to orchestrate the world's system through his fallen angelic demonic realm. And when you study them in Ephesians 6, they're organized kind of like military battalions. That's why Jesus when He went to cast out demons out of the man at Gadara, and upon asking "What is your name?", he says, "We are Legion, for we are many." Study "Legion" in Roman thought, the Greco-Roman time period that that was in which that was written. It's a battalion of about 3,000 to 6,000 people. And I say to myself, you mean 3,000 to 6,000 demons were in that insane man at Gadara? And I think that's what the Bible is talking about. I mean, tremendous power that Satan has, but he's not God.

By the way, there's a big push in our world as you know: World Economic Forum, New World Order. You know, Bill Gates. People say, "Is Bill Gates mentioned in the Bible?" Yes, he is. The Bible says the gates of hell will not prevail against the church. At our prophecy conference where you have guys coming: Alex Newman, Patrick Wood, these guys that will bring you up to speed on all of this mark of the beast type technology, which is being foisted on the human race to enslave the human race. Why does Satan want all of this stuff? Because he's not everywhere at once. He's not like God. He wants to be God, but he's not God. So he's got to have a system in place that monitors, tracks, controls the global population. God wouldn't need such a system if He possessed the omnis, which He does not.

So we're not dealing here with the movie "Rocky," right? Where the two heavyweights go into the ring and we don't know who's going to win. We know who's going to win this. God is going to win this. I mean, this is no contest. God is God. Satan is a created being. He only exists because God has allowed him to exist for some kind of higher purpose which many times is known only to God. All you have to do is believe the first words in the Bible and you know who's going to win. Genesis 1, verse 1 says, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." If that's the only verse you ever had, boy, that would straighten out your theology and mine too if we believed it.

Atheism is not real because Genesis 1:1 says God created. Pantheism is not real. Pantheism teaches that God exists in creation. A lot of people into earth worship are into pantheism. I am not an earth worshiper. I'm an earth steward. I think we should take care of the earth. But you push me in the direction of worshipping the earth and we'd better be nice to the earth or the earth is going to react against us through tsunamis—no, count me out because you're confusing creation versus creator there. So pantheism can't be true because God spoke creation into existence. Polytheism, many gods, can't be true because Genesis 1:1 says God created.

Materialism can't be true, the worship of matter. Do you know any materialists in your life? You'll see a lot of them over at First Colony Mall this time of year, people stampeding to get the latest buy. Black Friday, as it's called. It's a sickening thing that happens to our culture where people are willing to crowd each other, step over each other to get the latest deal. What is that? That's the worship of matter over God. If people knew God, they wouldn't act that way. Materialism can't be God. I hope you're not looking to a thing to give you meaning because God is transcendent over matter. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

Humanism can't be true. Humanism is the worship of man. Man is the center of all things. When the United States Supreme Court threw Bible reading and prayer out of the schools in the 1960s, nature abhors a vacuum, and what came into the schools is an alternative religion called Humanism. This is what our youth are taught around the clock: the worship of man. God, if he exists at all, is irrelevant. And that moves into Naturalism because they have to have some kind of explanation as to where everything came from. Well, everything came about accidentally over gradual processes spanning billions and billions of years. It takes the miraculous hand of God and removes it from the equation.

And then if you believe Genesis chapter one, verse one, Dualism can't be true. Dualism is Rocky and Apollo. Dualism is the idea that God has a rival. Folks, God has no rivals because God is the creator. He possesses the omnis. Satan from our standpoint has a lot of power, but he's no rival to God. I mean, we already know who's going to win this cosmic struggle. It's nothing I have to, like when my dad took me to see "Rocky" in the '70s. And today there's like "Rocky 1,500" or something. I saw Stallone, Sly Stallone, walking with a cane. Did you see that? And I said, "Wow, this time has really moved on." It's like these musicians singing "Time Is On My Side" when they're like in their late '70s, early '80s, and I'm like thinking, "I don't think time is on your side anymore."

But this idea that God somehow has a competitor—there are no competitors. You don't have to sit like I did in the '70s on the edge of my seat wondering if Rocky is going to pull this off or not because your Bible tells us that Satan is a created being. And so since that is true and we know who's going to win, hands down, no contest, let's get on the right side of God. I mean, why in the world would I invest myself into this world system that's collapsing by the day? That's on the losing side of history. I don't want to go down as a perpetual loser. I want to be on the winning side, and I know where the winning side is because I believe the very first verse in the very first chapter in the very first book: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."

And so these magicians, while possessing a certain level of power, they could not reverse any plague. And now they've gotten to the point where God is creating gnats out of dust. We're moving from non-living to living and they say, "We can't do it." So what is their conclusion to the whole thing, hence the title of our sermon? And it took me this long to get to the through my introduction. So here we go. Here's how they conclude, verse 19: "The magicians said to Pharaoh, 'This is the finger of God.'"

And what a concept that is: the finger of God. What does that even mean? It means something that only God can do. I mean, there must be things that only God can do or else he wouldn't be God, right? Now he's going to, as we're going to study in the book of Exodus, bring the children of Israel after their release from bondage to Mount Sinai, and he's going to give them the Law. And as the Law is given, this is what it will say: "When He had finished speaking with him upon Mount Sinai, He gave Moses the two tablets of the Testimony, tablets of stone written by the finger of God." Deuteronomy 9, verse 2, looking back at this event, says, "The Lord," Moses speaking, "gave me the two tablets of stone written by the finger of God." The Law of God could only come from God. Only God could give the Law, which is a revelation of His perfect moral character, so it's called the finger of God.

Creation, as much as everybody tries to come up with an explanation of creation without God, creation itself, which declares the handiwork of God around the clock. See, you don't have to go to church to listen to a sermon. All you have to do is look at nature and creation and God discloses constantly to people who He is, His character. That's called the finger of God as well. Psalm 8 and verse 3: "When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have ordained."

Now, Jesus showed up in the New Testament and He offered the nation of Israel the Millennial Kingdom. It's called the offer of the Kingdom on a silver platter. And He testified to the legitimacy of the offer through signs and wonders. And as this offer was dangling in front of the leadership of the nation of Israel, this is how Luke in Luke 11, verse 20 describes it, recording the words of Christ: "But if I cast out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God," the offer of the Millennial Kingdom, "has come upon you."

And so I started to try to research in my preparation everywhere in the Bible I could find the finger of God. And it shows up in another place. Do you know where it is? It's in John chapter eight and verse six, which is the famous or infamous story of the woman caught in adultery. "Hey, the law of Moses says we should stone her to death. What do you say?" And Jesus, I'm assuming, gets down on his hands and knees and he begins writing in the dirt. Now, there are hundreds if not thousands of pages that have been spilled in commentaries trying to tell you what Jesus was writing there with his finger in the dirt. And the truth of the matter is not a single one of them knows. You know why they don't know? Because the Bible doesn't say. I don't care if you've got your PhD from whatever. Nobody knows what He wrote there in the dirt because the Bible doesn't say.

Now, some working theories are He wrote down the Ten Commandments, meaning that this woman's accusers were violators of the law themselves. That's a possibility. Other people say no, he wrote down the sins of the accusers. They want to stone her to death, what about your sins? Maybe he wrote down the sins of the woman's accusers, a theory. We don't know.

But whatever He wrote down is called the finger of God. It's in John 8, verse 6. It says, "They were saying this, testing him," which is never smart, "so that they might have grounds for accusing him, but Jesus stooped down with his finger wrote on the ground." The finger of God. And by the time they had absorbed all of this, they dropped their stones and they left.

Jesus did something in that instance that a no human being has ever done: He brought together grace and truth. John 1, verse 14 says the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, look at this, full of grace and truth. There is no human being that's ever been full of grace and truth. Just look at people. There are people in this world that are very gracious, but they have a tendency, you'll notice, to be sort of untruthful. They de-emphasize truth. Truth doesn't matter, we don't want to upset anybody. Some people are so gracious that it's almost their brain leaks out of their head. What happened to truth? And then there are other people that are very truth-oriented. "This is the way it is. This is what the Bible says." And you'll notice with people like that that they're not very gracious. They have a tendency to be sort of harsh with their proclamations, not really concerned about the feelings of other people.

And so there's never been a person that's had both full of both simultaneously. And yet Jesus had both. He was gracious and when He emphasized grace, He never compromised truth. And when He emphasized truth, He never compromised grace. I mean, only Jesus could be that way. Only the finger of God can do this. Because that's what the finger of God is: it's something that only God can do. And you'll see there in that account of the woman caught in adultery, you'll see both grace and truth coming together simultaneously. He never compromised truth because he said to her at the end, "Leave your life of sin." He didn't say, "Hey, keep going in sin." He never said that. But at the same time, he gave her an unfathomable measure of grace. And whatever he wrote on the ground, whether it's the sins of the detractors or the Ten Commandments or, you know, maybe he wrote on the ground because it takes two to tango, right? Kind of interesting, "the woman caught in adultery." Doesn't it take two people to commit adultery? Where's the man? Maybe he wrote down the name of the man, showing their bias, chauvinism, misogyny.

But whatever He wrote down, it's something that only He could do. And He fused together grace and truth, which John's gospel says has come. He's full of both. And then you have this scene where the finger of God reveals both coming together in a person. I look at my own life and I say, "Lord, teach me how to speak the truth in love." Because I'm pretty good at truth. You know, I could belt the truth out all day long. But what does Paul say? You could have your doctrine completely correct, but if you come off in sort of a unloving way, then you're just a resounding gong. Other people say, "You know what, I'm just not going to upset anybody, so I'm just going to de-emphasize truth." And I say, "Lord, teach me how to do both." It's Ephesians chapter 4, verse 15, if you're looking for a verse on this: speak the truth in love. That's hard. Jesus could do it because He was both. He was gracious and truthful, and only the finger of God could pull this off, see that?

The greatest miracle that God would do to bring life from non-life is the resurrection, isn't it? First Corinthians 15 talks about the resurrected Christ appearing to Cephas, the 12, the 500, James, the rest of the apostles, Paul himself. That paragraph says this, First Corinthians 15, verses 6 and 7: "After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time," look at this, "most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep." Paul says don't take my word for it, talk to these 500 people walking around. Some of them have passed on, but they saw Jesus in his resurrected body. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Paul says, you know, last of all, he seems almost embarrassed, he appeared to me, you know, the least of the apostles. I wasn't even there on the ground floor. I used to persecute the church, and he appeared to me also. That's the finger of God as well.

First Corinthians 15, verse 14 says if Christ has not been raised then our preaching is in vain and your faith also is in vain. I mean, if you don't believe in life from death here, there's no sense in being a Christian. I mean, there's no sense in gathering together to worship and study the Lord if this miracle didn't transpire.

Jesus said in John 11, verses 25 and 26 when he was about to or had resuscitated or about to resuscitate Lazarus from the dead, speaking to the sisters, Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live even if he dies. And everyone who lives and believes in me will never die." I can't tell you how many systematic theology textbooks I've read that stop quoting the verse right there. "Hey, we made our theological point, let's move on." And yet what they're cutting out is the most important thing because he says to the sisters, "Do you believe this?"

We're not dealing with a theology lesson anymore. We're not dealing with a historiography—that's a word—a biography. It's what do you believe? Do you believe in the finger of God? Do you believe in this power that God has that cannot be replicated by global forces tapped into Satan's domain that they can't replicate? Only God can do it. And if you believe it, you go to heaven. Pretty simple. You believe that Jesus has the ability to say and do what he promises to do, to give the gift of eternal life to anyone who trusts in the Messiah. The finger of God. Only something God can do.

We conclude here with Pharaoh's reaction, which is not good. "But Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and he did not listen to them," watch this, "as the Lord had said." It doesn't say God hardened Pharaoh's heart, does it? It says he hardened his own heart. God is not even mentioned in the passage. Ed Hindson says for the initial five plagues, the text registers Pharaoh as the agent of hardening. Not until the sixth plague does God participate in the confirmation of Pharaoh's own volitional choices. Charles Ryrie writes seven times Pharaoh hardened his own heart before God first hardened it, though God predicted what would happen. God said this would happen, Exodus 4, verse 21. Pharaoh hardened his own heart repeatedly, and then finally in plague six, God gave Pharaoh over to what he wanted.

God doesn't—people say, "I don't believe in a God that sends people to hell." Well, I don't either. God doesn't send people to hell. People go to hell volitionally because they take the revelation of God and suppress it, as Romans 1, verses 18 through 20 says of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Not only is Pharaoh hardened through his own volition here, but look at this—this is frightening—he did not listen to them.

What does the Bible say over and over and over again? Be quick to listen and slow to speak. That's in James 1, verse 19. "This you know, I don't know because I don't follow it. This you know, my beloved brethren, but everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger." Now, that verse is how I know the Bible is from God. Because it diagnoses my heart, which always does the opposite. I'm the first person to get mad, I'm the first person to talk, and I'm the last person to listen. That's just how I instinctively am.

So when God says be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, I say that's a diagnosis of my own depravity because I'm the opposite. And who could diagnose my heart so well other than God? And I look at that and I say this book is from God. What did our mothers always teach us? God gave you one mouth and two ears, use them in proportion. You ever heard that? Pretty good advice. And it's just a frightening thing where people just don't want to listen anymore. That's where Pharaoh is. Doesn't want to hear God's servants, doesn't want to hear God's decrees.

Sometimes it masquerades as business. "Oh, I'm busy. I'm too busy to study the Bible. I'm too busy to go to church. I'm too busy to listen to teaching or whatever the case may be." But that's just a masquerade many times. We just—we just don't want to be bothered. We don't want to listen. We'll use religious excuses. "I've gotta do my Christmas shopping," whatever. And we have to be—we have to ask the Lord to change us in this way.

The two sisters, remember. One was busy, the other one was sitting at Christ's feet to the irritation of the busy sister, Martha and Mary. "Help me!" Well, the one that's listening at my feet has chosen the better way. Notice that's a choice. She's chosen the better way. We have to be in a mindset where we're choosing to hear from God, listen to God. Pharaoh wasn't like that, even though he's seeing all these miracles happen that his own magicians couldn't duplicate. They certainly couldn't reverse them, and now it's to a point where they can't even imitate them anymore. You think that would get his attention?

But did you catch the end of verse 19? "As the Lord had said." God predicted this would happen. That goes all the way back to Exodus 7, verse 4. God speaking to Moses and Aaron, "When Pharaoh does not listen to you"—not if. Another example of fulfilled prophecy showing that God has everything under control. People can rebel all they want, and they're actually fulfilling His plan as they rebel. Isn't that—isn't that astounding? God must be pretty big to pull this off.

Well, next week we're going to graduate from gnats to flies. So try to read verses 20 through the end of the chapter for next time. We'll try to work in Christmas somehow, but pray for me as I try to do that.

Let's pray. Lord, we just thankful for your word, thankful for what it reveals about us. We do pray, Lord, if anyone is here within the sound of my voice that does not know you personally, that today would be the day of salvation. Help them to understand what you did for them 2,000 years ago through your death, burial, resurrection, and ascension. Help us all to understand if we were the only person on planet Earth, you would have done the exact same thing. That's how much you love us and want a relationship with us. But sin separates us from you, and we need a provision whereby we can approach you and know you. And that sin debt got taken care of 2,000 years ago. If anyone within the sound of my voice has never received this free gift, which can only be accessed by faith, I do pray that for them today is a day of salvation. We pray for many, many salvations today and really throughout this Advent Christmas season. I can't think of a better time to be born again than in this special time of the year where we celebrate your birth into our fallen world. Do this great work, we pray. We ask these things in Jesus' name, and God's people said, "Amen."