The defeat of the gods | The Road Out 8

Hey, what up?

It's Mark Carter on, the Pastor of Fierce Church.

Welcome to our podcast.

I'm so pumped that you're able to join us today.

I hope this encourages you, inspires you, strengthens you, gives you hope to keep pressing on, and it's my prayer that this sermon gives you a more expansive view of God's love for you.

Enjoy the message.

So you might not know this, but there was a recent, very recent, like within the last week or so recent discovery.

Most of us probably thought that photography modern photography really started in the 1830s or 40s, but archaeologists have found out that in ancient Egypt, they already had cameras and selfie sticks, and so I just want to show you some of the pictures that have really recently been uncovered by archaeologists.

Let's see the first one.

This is Moses' mom and Moses.

I'm so glad that she had the foresight to snap a pic before she placed him in the basket.

That was really a smart idea.

There's also one that you wouldn't expect.

Here's the Nile turning to blood, and some Egyptians very nervous about it.

We're going to be talking about them today.

And then I can't even believe this one happened, but during the plague of frogs, just some frogs got ahold of the camera, and I'm so glad that they preserved this for us.

So that was either an ancient camera or it was just AI, I'm not sure which one, but I'm glad to know that they're there.

We're going to make some sense out of some stuff today, like the plagues.

We're talking about the plagues, and the plagues can even be a little bit hard.

They're a little bit confusing because they imply that God is a God who will bring discipline, he will bring correction, he will get our attention in ways that might be a little bit painful and just so we're all clear.

This is a very clear thing in scripture.

Hebrews 12, 6 says For the Lord disciplines the one he loves and chastises every son whom he receives.

One of the things that I'm always concerned about as a pastor is that we understand there's this thing that sometimes this phrase that's thrown around it's feel good Christianity.

Now, make no mistake, jesus wants you to feel good.

He wants you to feel better than anybody wants you to feel.

But feel good Christianity is the version that says I want some spiritual truths that have something to do with Jesus but also come with a seat warmer and a little pillow, and that's just not the Christianity of the New Testament, the Christianity in the Bible comes with a cross, and part of that cross is embracing the loving, corrective discipline that God sometimes brings into our lives.

A way to think about it, though, is so often we've got some kind of image in our mind like there's an angry, irritated father that has just had enough and now he's going to lay the smack down.

But that's not how God is.

Think, rather, of an orthodontist.

An orthodontist knows, every time that they twist those braces, that it's going to bring a little bit of pain to the person who's getting, who has those braces, but they also know there's going to be corrective action.

That happens.

God corrects our actions.

He uses the pains of life, the difficulties, to bring about a greater love for him, devotion to him, devotion to his ways.

It even says this in Hebrews 12,.

I'm not flip my lid when I read this years ago Endure hardship as discipline.

Like any, any hardship as discipline, anything you're going through that's rough.

It's not that you should think God's mad at you, but there's a way to view this of like oh, I can either see this used for my good, or I can just kind of like not notice, or I can get overly complaining about it, or I can say God, if you're trying to use this in some way, I want to concede that and cooperate with it.

See, the best prayer, even when you don't.

Sometimes we don't know why, like we're going through hardship, we don't like I don't know what the point of this is, what's happening here?

Sometimes it's great to ask for understanding God as I'm praying.

God, would you help me understand why I'm in this trial?

Often I would tell you.

It seems in my experience he doesn't necessarily tell you.

But maybe a great prayer for anybody at any time is God, help me learn whatever you want me to learn in this.

Help me become more like your son, jesus Christ.

God is treating you as children.

For what?

Children are not disciplined by their father.

One of the things you can comfort yourself with is God.

I'm thinking you love me so much that you want to correct my spiritual teeth.

You want to make sure that I look as much like Jesus as humanly possible.

So in our narratives today, the plagues are a correction to Pharaoh and a sign and a wonder and a warning to the Israelites whom he has enslaved.

Now, pharaoh, he's a real stubborn guy.

God knows that he's going to have to get a little bit firm with Pharaoh again and again and again.

Now, if you're a counselor or maybe you're even in sales, you know how this goes when somebody meets you with kind of an aggressive spirit, when they're kind of like they come in.

I've just found, as a counselor, if I try to be overly sweet to that person at that moment, that's not going to work.

Now you need to meet them at the emotional level of their ats and God knows that with Pharaoh he's like Pharaoh, you are really hard man.

You got a hard heart.

I'm going to have to give you some hard stuff in order to break through that.

See, god is the God that searches all hearts and he knows every one of our hearts and he knows exactly what we need.

You know that even your most difficult trials God has created.

Really, he's specified it just for you.

He knows exactly what you're supposed to get out of that.

He won't leave you in that oven one second longer than you need it, and it's in his great love that he allows you to go through it.

And sometimes he allows it to be a little harder.

Sometimes it's because, and sometimes sometimes it's because our hearts need to be softened.

I don't think any of us need plagues in here?

I hope not today.

But one thing that God always wants to bridge the divide to he wants us to have the right understanding that God is our source and God is our security.

I alone am your source and security.

That's what God says, that's what he would say to every one of us today.

And when we say he's a source, he's like an ongoing source.

It's not like, you know, my mommy's womb is my source on some level, right Like that's where I came from.

That's my point of origin.

But there's a different kind of source.

There's an ongoing source, there's an organic source, there's a source that I need all the time.

Jesus couched it this way John 15, 5,.

I'm the vine, you're the branches.

If you remain in me and I and you, you'll bear much fruit.

Apart from me, you can do nothing.

And that's really the point God is saying hey, just, you know I'm your source.

All the gifts you have, all the strength, you have all the smarts you have.

Just to be clear, I want you to always know I'm the source of that, I'm the one giving you that.

I didn't just give it to you, I'm actively giving it to you.

Okay, so you guys know about this.

This is a cell phone.

You've got a cell phone and you know that this thing runs for a little while, but then it needs to return to a power source, right, okay, so let's hope this works.

I'm gonna feel like a real butt head if this doesn't work.

But Every day I'm thinking, okay, how long until I've got to plug this thing back in.

But when I plug it back in, suddenly it can now refresh itself.

It can get more power than it needs for every day stuff.

We're the same way.

We need to always be plugging back into Jesus.

We didn't have enough before.

Now we need to plug back in because life has continued to happen and there's more hard stuff.

But he's not just our source, he's our security.

He's the one who says the reason the future is gonna be okay.

It's because I'm in the future.

That's the why.

So, as we stress out, we spend all this time thinking, oh, my gosh, what's gonna happen if this?

What's gonna happen if that?

And God says, hey, no worries, just like you're fine right now, you're gonna be fine then.

Just like they're fine right now.

They're good enough.

God is still in control.

God has got enough for them.

I'm gonna be God enough in the future.

Since God reproves those he loves and he does it further good, our best bet is to cooperate with him.

As soon as we can, as soon as it comes into our head oh, I need to be cooperating with God in a better way.

The sooner we do that, the better.

So the plagues these are in the biblical category of signs and wonders.

A sign and a wonder, it's not just like fireworks in the sky.

It comes with a very specific purpose, two purposes in fact.

One of them is to authenticate the messenger.

So whoever God is using to do the sign and wonder through, he's saying that's my guy, that's my girl, they're the ones I'm telling you, they're from me.

And that's what the sign or wonder and plague is doing.

But even more importantly, it points beyond them to the truth of God.

It points out something about God and his awesomeness and his greatness.

So the purpose of the plagues there's several.

One of them is to demonstrate God's power.

Just to demonstrate God's power.

See, god is like just so we're all clear, god, we gotta review it again and again and again.

Egyptians need to know it.

Israelites need to know it.

People who live in America need to know it.

There is no one anywhere close to as powerful as God.

That's what they're trying to tell us today.

There's no one even close.

There's nobody, baby.

It doesn't matter how stubborn they are, it doesn't matter how much of a strong will they have.

There's probably people in the world you could name right now.

You're like man, they are a strong will person.

There's people who run for president who are really strong willed people.

They're like oh God.

There's people who have been even villains in the past.

We would probably say You'd say people like Hitler, you'd say people like Stalin, you'd say people like Saddam Hussein, you'd say people like Osama bin Laden.

These are people that they had such a hard-hearted will, even toward the things of God.

But you don't really.

No matter how hard our heart is, god can just outlast everybody.

See, a hard heart, god has the power.

In the midst of all of our rebellion, in the midst of all of our pushback, god has the power to just sit there and wait.

And our hard heart, it will either melt because he softens it, or it will go away because we're dead.

And God, just he can wait, man, he's patient.

Years ago well, it happens every year, but years ago.

Up in Lake Geneva during the winter, there's these ice sculptures.

Some of you guys have seen these, okay, and they're really beautiful.

What a couple of winters ago.

It got unseasonably warm and they just began to melt right there, as a reminder to us.

Maybe, if you think about things this way, as right now we're melting.

We're melting right now Like all of our will is cold as we wanna be toward God.

Maybe it doesn't matter.

You are melting Now.

God is gonna win every argument.

God is gonna wind up on top.

God is the one who's powerful and he wants the Israelites to remember this.

See, they're seeing this for the first time.

They're not even.

They don't really know they're God, but for centuries to come, they need to know this is the God whom you serve.

So it is to demonstrate his power, but it's also to defeat the gods of Egypt.

This is strange, like we don't think about this, but the gods of Egypt were not just like fiction.

They weren't just like Peter Pan.

According to the biblical story, they were God rebels.

They were people that were not people.

They were spirits that were once a part of the heavenly council.

They were on God's staff team, and yet they rebelled against him and so he kicked him out, kicked him down to earth.

And so the gods of Egypt, they were really, the Bible says, demons and they control lots of stuff on earth.

And I know it sounds spooky, it sounds like Halloween or something, but I think if you pay attention you can sometimes see them.

See, the Bible says sometimes they're even over not only areas but even nations.

There's just these powerful spirit beings.

Their days are numbered, they're not going to be here forever, but they're the ones who feed the human idea of sin.

Okay, so when you see humans giving themselves to disarray and chaos and murder, the Bible says they're responsible for that.

But just know, there's also dark spiritual forces prompting that and trying to do something to get back at God.

And what that thing is?

It's to recreate humans in the image of evil.

That's what.

That's what that's what the evil spirit beings are trying to do.

And God is saying hey, man, just everybody, pay attention, these guys are chumps, these guys are nothing.

I, I alone, am God, and I'm gonna show everybody Exodus 12, 12.

This skips ahead a few plagues, but we see God say this on that night I will pass through the land of Egypt and strike down every firstborn son, firstborn male, in the land of Egypt.

I will execute judgment against all the gods of Egypt, for I am the Lord.

That means he's not just executing stuff against Winnie the Pooh and Peter Pan, it's not just fictions, he really thinks they're real.

They're these dark powers that God wants to once and for all settle the score and say I'm the guy.

And then also one last Purpose to talk about the plagues.

Foreshadow the gospel.

See the plagues.

They're their favor and blessing and salvation to everybody who is thrown in their lot with the God of the Hebrews like it.

Hey, god is for us, hallelujah.

But they're also a warning.

They're a ticking clock down saying the judgments are getting more intense and they keep getting more intense.

Scholars tell us this whole thing took about a year.

But as people are watching this, they're watching these plagues get more and more intense.

And that's a science, was everybody?

Hey, for those who will surrender to and find their forgiveness in Jesus Christ, you got nothing, we got favor.

Like you are set man, god is for you.

Who can be against you?

But for those who, like Pharaoh, consistently, persistently, harden their heart toward God and harden their heart toward his son, jesus Christ, god says, my friends, there's a final plague and then that's it.

It's the plague of death and it gets everybody.

And God doesn't want.

We're gonna see, you see.

You see with new eyes how merciful God is to Pharaoh, how long suffering, how patient he is with this defiant little king.

So let's start with the snake staff we got he most and Marin doing all this preparation.

Now they're gonna go into Pharaoh for the first time.

They're like, hey, pharaoh, we can do.

God's sent us to do some miracles to get your attention.

Exit of seven, ten.

So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did what the Lord commanded them.

Aaron threw down his staff before Pharaoh and his officials and became a serpent.

Then Pharaoh called in his own wise men and sorcerers, and these Egyptian Magicians did the same thing with their magic.

They didn't just have like Snakes in the corner somewhere that they were hiding in a bag Like.

This is real dark, demonic power.

They threw down their staffs, which also became servants, but then Aaron staff swallowed theirs up.

Pharaoh's heart, however, here it is, remained hard.

He refused to listen, just as the Lord predicted, and all of us from time to time have a hard Heart.

I don't want to hear.

I don't want to hear it.

When there's evidence, in fact, I'll even look for a loophole out of the evidence.

See Pharaoh's just like.

I'll take anything, okay, well, my guys can make snakes too.

Look at that, ignoring the fact that, yeah, bro, but that other snake just ate yo snakes.

Did you see that?

Like, that's a thing that just happened here.

Now he's nice, not like we do.

He hardens his heart and he ignores what's right in front of him.

We're gonna see this pattern.

Let's.

Let's see the the plague patterns on the screen here real quick, just for these first four cuz.

So the first one it's not really a plague, it's the snake staff.

But the same things happen.

God tells him hey, go show Pharaoh.

Um, pharaoh's gonna say no, the magicians are gonna try to do the same thing, only it's a weak sauce version.

And then Pharaoh's gonna harden his heart again.

See that with the snake staff.

Then there's the plague of blood.

It gets a little more specific.

God's like Pharaoh no, dude, you gotta let my people go now.

Like this, is it?

I'm?

I'm being gracious with you.

Pharaoh says no, the magicians try to weak sauce, do it again, as we're gonna see.

Pharaoh hardens his heart.

Then the plague of frogs, same thing happens.

The magicians do it again in a version, though they can't seem to get rid of it.

And Then Pharaoh hardens his heart again, all the way through this plague of gnats that we're gonna see quickly today.

Now, the thing you got to know about this first, the real plague, the first sign was the staff.

The first plague is denial.

This has got touching their source.

This is what's happening.

So hear it with those those years, verse 17.

So this is what the Lord says.

I will show you that I am the Lord.

Look, I will strike the water of the now with the staff in my hand, and the river will turn to blood, the fish in it will Die, the river will stink.

The Egyptians will not be able to drink any water.

Now, this is an attack on the river.

God, hoppy, okay, this is a real person that they look at the now river and they're like this is a personification of this God who provides for us.

It's a sorcerer.

It's where we get all of our food, it's how we bathe, it's how we cook, it's how we get along, it's, it's, it's really the backbone of our economy.

I mean, think about this.

Not only do they need this now to eat.

That's where all the fish are.

But this is how they make.

They salt fish, they sell fish.

This is the entire backbone economy of Egypt itself.

So when that goes away, god is touching their source and check this out.

When the blood, the mouth becomes blood and kills all the fish, it that last seven days.

But it's not like the fish just spring back out of nowhere.

Now there's no fish.

Now They've got to wait for other fish to come downstream, new fish to be born, and so it's a crippling thing for their economy.

And God is saying the Nile is not in charge, hoppy's not in charge, I'm in charge, I am your source and nobody else is your source.

And Pharaoh, if you were such a God, how come you can't do anything about this?

And how come your magicians can't do anything about this?

See, sometimes I hear here's, here's the sign for us.

Now, this is hard, man, because trials are weird things, difficulties are weird things, because it's not always the same answer why this is happening.

But that's why we need the Holy Spirit, that's why God made us to walk in relationship with him, so we could seek his face and say help me understand, am I supposed to be seeing something, and sometimes One of the things that we're supposed to be seeing when we go from prosperity To lack, which is what the Egyptians just did Abundance to lack.

I'm not saying like you're low on money.

I'm not saying you haven't really learned how to manage your money yet.

I'm saying you went from man we rolling to.

That's a good time to ask some questions.

That's a good time to say God, I feel like maybe you saw that coming, maybe you're trying to let me know something, so that could possibly be something that's going on again.

You need the Holy Spirit and you need to communicate with God.

You need spiritual counsel to maybe understand that a little bit better.

And sometimes you never understand it.

You just trust God.

But it's a good wake-up call to say maybe all my ways are not pleasing to God.

But it was also a reminder of sin.

Like, think about this.

It's so cool when you think about Some of the Egyptians at the time.

They probably remembered a generation ago when the Pharaoh of that time, what did he do?

He took all the little Hebrew baby boys and he said throw them in the river.

Throw them in the river.

And what happens there?

Well, there's crocodiles in that river.

And so you might be walking by the river back in that day and you'd see, oh my gosh, here comes a little baby.

There's kind of floating there and then home, and all you see then is a cloudy smoke, blood Pool in the water.

And so these Egyptians are seeing the whole now, the whole things, blood, and perhaps they're reminded of their sin.

They're reminded do you remember when the water was becoming bloody before?

Because you chose to defy God in his ways?

And sometimes God will bring little reminders just to mind hey, remember this, we even talked about that.

Hey, remember this thing.

You haven't actually asked for forgiveness for that.

And God will keep bringing that up to our mind, not to condemn us, but just to make us aware why.

Because God loves us so much, he wants us to be unified.

He wants us to be like this.

He says I want our heart to heart, man, I want us to be so in sync with one another.

But when you're ignoring me, when you're just hardening your heart and saying, no, we can't be synced like I want to be.

But again, the magicians of Egypt used their magic and they too turned the water into blood.

Now, this is kind of hilarious.

Let's go.

So Pharaoh's heart remained hard.

He refused to listen to Moses and Aaron.

Just as the Lord had predicted, pharaoh returned to his palace and put the whole thing out of his mind.

Then all the Egyptians dug around the riverbank to find water, for they couldn't drink the water from the.

Now God is saying something about Egypt's leadership in this.

Okay, see, Moses is a shepherd.

Moses, we're going to see throughout the book of Exodus.

He really cares about these people.

Sometimes we're like why?

Yet Pharaoh, all his people like.

They can't eat, they can't sell anything, they can't drink any water, they can't bathe, and he's like I can't handle this, I'm going in.

He just goes away.

God is point.

That's what a judgment does.

A judgment points out who we really are, who we really are on the inside.

He takes the excuse, just like before.

God wants us to know from that.

I alone am your source and your security here's number one.

God opposes anything, anything else.

As my source, he likes us to have stuff.

I believe God gives us good gifts all the time.

He's a great Father.

He knows how to give good gifts to his kids.

He has four fish.

He's not going to give you a snake, and yet he wants us to be very clear yeah, but I'm your source, I'm where all that is coming from.

I'm the guy.

And sometimes we get this screwy in our head and we don't mean to, we just do.

We start to think things like, as long as things are going great, I'm going to be all good.

So you can tell this source idol that's what it is.

It's an idol.

This source idol.

You can tell it because your mind will say just, it'll just whisper to you I'm all good if I'm all good.

If everything is going great, I'm all good as long as there's money coming in.

If there's not as much money coming in, I'm not good.

Why?

Because really in my heart, what's being revealed is I really think that's my source.

I'm all good as long as everybody at work likes me.

I'm all good as long as I'm getting positive feedback online.

Or I'm all good if I feel good about my parenting or my grandparenting.

Or I'm all good if everyone in my friend group feels like there's peace between us.

I'm all good if that's an idol of a source and God says, no, you're not all good.

If that, you're all good because of me, because I take care of you in every season and sometimes you have a lot and sometimes you have a little, but I'm the guy who always takes care of you, so when that happens, sometimes he has to take away something.

In order for us to see it, though.

He takes away something as we're like oh my gosh, I was thinking about that as a source.

This past weekend I was at this pastor's retreat Super cool but it's three hours into Wyoming, in the middle of the mountains, and there's no cell service and there's no internet, and so me and 24 other pastors were sitting there in this lodge.

It's kind of nice, they're treating us well, but nobody has any access to the outside world, and at first it feels really uncomfortable because one of my sources is as long as I know what the problems are, I can solve them.

But without this phone working, I don't even know what the problems are, so I can't solve them.

And what was God pointing out to me?

He's saying that's one of your sources.

You think that's stupid thing.

You think this is a source to you.

God says I gave you that and I can take it away.

I can make none of those things work.

I can put you in the mountains, where that stuff's never going to work.

They're never going to find you.

Yeah, baby, he could.

I mean, let's be real, he could.

God is our source and he doesn't, because he loves us so much.

He doesn't like competitors.

And so all we have to do is concede it and cooperate.

Concede it.

Wouldn't it be nice if that's what Pharaoh would have done right away?

Hey man, god, I concede you are God.

Okay, let's just do what you want to do.

That's not what he did, but it's what we should do.

And yet here God goes again.

He's still offering Pharaoh another chance, eight two.

If you refuse to let them go now, he's coming back.

If you refuse meaning you don't have to refuse Pharaoh, but if you do, if you refuse to let them go, I will send a plague of frogs across your entire land.

The Nile River will swarm with frogs that will come up out of the river and into your palace, even into your bedroom and out of your bed.

They will enter the houses of your officials and your people.

They will jump into your ovens and your kneading bowls.

Can you imagine how horrifying this is?

I mean, I know it sounds like other cute little frogs, yeah, but they're everywhere.

Dude, you're like sleeping in the bed and there's frogs on you, around you.

Can you imagine what that's like?

In the spring, as it started to warm up, we found in our basement a little muskrat.

We're used to having mice or something like that, an old set of trap, and get rid of that, but there was this muskrat, and so it would kind of like zip behind something and we're like did I just see what?

I thought it was like the size of a small dog, and once there was one muskrat in the house, the house lost its mind.

It was like, oh my gosh, there's a living creature.

What is he going to eat us?

What's he going to do?

We ended up catching it and releasing it back into the woods.

They named it.

What did they name it, kenz?

What is it?

Morris Morris, morris the muskrat.

That makes sense.

Two, M's Morris the muskrat.

He was nice and gentle, but he was still freaking us out.

At first.

He was just one.

What if there's a bazillion of these frogs everywhere?

How are you going to feel about your day?

Now, here it gets, even kukier.

But the magicians were able to do the same thing.

With their magic, they too caused frogs to come up out of Egypt.

Then Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and begged Okay, now look at Pharaoh.

This is the first time that he crumbles a little bit.

This is the first time he's like, ah, my magicians can do this, but they can't seem to get rid of it.

No-transcript Someone.

Moses and Aaron and begged plead with the Lord to take the frogs away from me and my people.

I will let your people go so they can offer sacrifices to the Lord.

Yeah, kinda For a second he's thinking that, but that's not what he's gonna do.

He's gonna harden his heart again.

Moses says you set the time.

Tell me when you want me to pray for you, your officials and your people.

Then you and your houses will be rid of frogs.

They will remain only in the Nile.

Do it tomorrow.

Pharaoh says Now.

What I find funny about this Is do you notice how powerful Moses is getting?

Like?

He's coming online man.

He's acting with authority.

Now he's representing God.

Well, he doesn't seem to be stumbling with his speech at all.

I really believe that's because he's obeying.

Okay.

So Acts 532 says God gives more of his Holy Spirit to those who will obey him.

And so here's Moses.

He's walking in it and it just kinda keeps increasing as he goes, he's becoming more powerful, but when trips will be out about Pharaoh?

Sin makes you dumb.

Okay, when Moses is like, hey, you just set the time and we'll pray and these things will all go away, and Pharaoh's like tomorrow, I'd be like can now work, can we just do now?

How about now?

Because my people still have to go to bed with frogs.

So sin just makes you insane, and that's what's happening to Pharaoh.

But when Pharaoh saw that the relief had come, he became stubborn and refused to listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the Lord predicted.

This plague is actually touching their worship.

This plague is touching their worship.

It's touching what they find security in, and I'll explain it to you.

See, frogs would remind every Egyptian of heck it.

It was their goddess of fertility.

It was their goddess that would come and protect babies.

They thought.

They thought they'd protect the pregnancy, they'd help mama deliver rightly.

And a cat had a frog head.

I don't know why she did, but she did.

And so every time these people see these frogs, they're like heck it should be able to do something about this.

This reminds us of heck it, and yet heck it isn't doing anything about this.

The great God, the true God, god almighty, seems to be running the show and heck, it can't do a dog gone thing about it.

And what's even funnier is, because frogs are sacred, you can't kill them.

It's illegal to kill frogs.

So I mean I'd be like, all right, man, no fish.

But hey, we got these frogs.

Let's see, let's have some frog legs.

Yo, our brother is going to be fine.

No, sorry, you can't swat them.

You know what I'm saying?

You can't kill them on the counter because it's illegal to kill frogs.

Because of heck it.

That's just as hilarious to me.

The Lord binds them in in such a way there's nothing you can do.

And when there's nothing you can do, it's time to look up God.

Is there anything I need to concede today?

Have I gotten myself into a mess that maybe I need your help to get me out of?

God says I alone am your source and your security.

So number one God opposes anything else as my source.

And number two, there's only two, god opposes anything else as my security.

See, their security was a cat would make everything in the future okay.

Haquette would make sure the baby, the posterity, the race continues on.

Haquette will cover everything we got going on up there.

So we're good.

Haquette represents the security of the Egyptians and God is saying no, I alone give you security.

If I take it away, you're not going to be able to do anything.

We know that we have this idol of security.

When we say I feel good about the future, as long as I feel good about the future, as long as when your heart whispers that to you, hey man, look, I'm just really stressed out.

But if this was true about the future, then I'd be okay.

So I feel good about the future as long as I go to the right school or I graduated from the right school, or I feel good about the future as long as my health remains intact.

If something starts to go wrong, then I'm not feeling good about the future anymore.

As long as people think well of me online, someone tries to cancel me, then I'm worried about that and I'm thinking about that, and then I'm not going to be okay.

As long as there's plenty of positive investments to make, as long as there's retail properties to buy that I can afford, then I'm going to feel good, because that's where my security is.

As long as there's money in the bank and continuing to pile up, I just like to watch that money pile up in the bank.

As long as that is happening, I'm good with the future.

Why?

Because, dear heart, that's your God.

You're trusting your security to that thing.

We all do it.

We all do it with different stuff, we all have different versions, but we all are okay with the future.

If this and that's the very thing we need to say God, I just want to concede.

I don't want to be like Pharaoh.

Soften my heart.

I want to concede.

That's probably true of me.

That's probably true.

Thank God for the blood of Jesus, you'll just forgive me.

That's awesome.

And yet I want, I need to acknowledge it, confess it and even worship with it.

Even worship with it.

Even when we sing in here today or when you're singing on your own you're singing in the car, singing in the shower, wherever you are you take your security, gods, and your source, gods, and you just push them across.

Say God, these are nothing and you are everything.

Jesus, you're great and you're going to be in the future, so I don't even need this.

I don't know what.

I'd like to have money in the bank, but I don't have money in the bank.

You're the one who puts money in my bank.

You're there, you're going to be fine, you're going to be healthy, everybody is going to be all good.

And now something happens.

There's another plague, it's the third plague, it's the plague of gnats.

That even just sounds, you know, spooky, the plague of gnats.

And the thing you've got to know about the plague of gnats is there's no warning.

He doesn't give Pharaoh a shot this time.

He's going to give him more in the future, but he doesn't even tell him it's coming.

He just says verse 18, pharaoh, he sends up this plague of gnats.

Pharaoh's magicians tried to do the same thing with their secret arts, but this time they failed and gnats covered everyone, people and animals alike.

And this is where even the enemies of God they're like oh, pharaoh, we should slow the boat.

Man, I thought maybe we could get away with this, and we are not getting away with this.

Verse 19,.

This is the finger of God, the magicians exclaimed to Pharaoh, but Pharaoh's heart remained hard.

He wouldn't listen to them, just as the Lord had predicted.

God has been so gracious to Pharaoh.

You know, once was enough.

Like you shouldn't need multiple warnings, pharaoh.

When he first told you to do it, obedience would have been the right thing to do.

And then you harden your heart and God's like patient.

He's like I'm going to give you another offer.

And then we harden our heart and God's patient.

He's like I'm going to give you another offer.

But then God says you know, it's not that I'm irritated, but I just need you to know there's consequences for you hardening your heart to me all the time, and I'm not always going to give you a heads up.

And sometimes we harden our heart and God says yeah, if he's feeling particularly kind to us that day.

Amen.

I'm telling you again this is a no.

And then some days he's like dude, you know this already, I've already told you this.

You know what's going to happen.

And then we begin to experience a version of God's discipline, just like Pharaoh did.

What do we do?

Well, as soon as it comes to mind, we concede and we confess.

We don't pull a pharaoh and we learn from the plagues.

What are some things we should learn now and in the coming weeks?

Well, one is there is no enemy that can beat God.

It doesn't matter where you are, it doesn't matter who's against you, it doesn't matter what's going wrong, it doesn't matter how the chips may be stacked against you, it doesn't matter, because God is all powerful.

Nothing can beat him.

Nothing, ever will.

Nothing's going to give you the smackdown, nothing should leave you hopeless.

God will come and save.

Jesus will come to the rescue.

That's the God he is.

He's the God who comes, reaches down and rescues, just like he was doing for these Hebrews, just like he's done all the whole time since then.

God is a rescuer and you ain't got nothing too hard, dude.

It's a breeze for God.

It's a breeze for God.

What do you?

Got Nothing.

You ain't got nothing.

That's too hard for God.

It's easy.

It's easy for God.

Jesus is the God who comes.

We learn that the plagues are foreshadowing the gospel.

The plagues are a message, a pre-message about Jesus.

It says hey, man, if you throw in with God, if you throw in with his son, jesus Christ, god has got you, man, he's going to make it.

He's going to demonstrate to everybody that he is on your side, that he's got your back.

Really, it's because you joined his side.

But if you don't, time is going to continue to run out and there's a final plague, and that is death.

And God doesn't want anyone to experience death apart from Christ.

Jesus said those who believe in me they'll never die.

It's not that their body won't expire, but they're just going to close their eyes once, blink and open in heaven.

Their spirit didn't die, their personhood didn't die because they trusted Jesus Christ.

Here's what we've got to understand.

We are the Israelites in the story, that's the every man.

We're the Israelites, but we're all so pharaoh.

We're all all so, pharaoh.

That's what the Bible teaches, and so we always need to be sensitive.

God, look, man, I will harden my heart.

So please give me grace, convict me, so I can turn back to your ways.

Here's what we do.

We give God our false assumptions and allegiances.

That's what I want to do right now.

How many would say you feel like there's maybe some false assumptions and allegiances and securities and sources that God's convicted you about, even right now?

We're going to take a moment.

Thank you.

I got one friend out here, all right, I got three or four more, thank you.

We're going to bring those to Jesus.

We're going to push him across and say, lord forgive.

We're even going to celebrate that he points out our weakness so it doesn't stay a weakness, and then for others of us, we need to receive Jesus as our source and security and our only source and security.

Do you remember the story?

The story is all the people you see and the humans you see and all the stuff on earth that you see.

This is not really the world God invented.

This is a vandalized version.

This is where the demons came and they tried to get humans to remake themselves in the demons image.

That's why things look weird sometimes, because it's not really the garden God made and God offers everybody.

Hey, if you will return to me, if you'll return to me as your source, if you'll return to me as your security, I will have you, I'll constantly regenerate you with life and I will make sure your future it is greater than anything you could ever imagine no matter what happens to you here, if we'll come back to God through Christ, jesus can do it.

Jesus alone is my source.

Jesus alone is my security.

Let's bow our heads right now and remind him of that that we know that, yeah, we just want to concede.

If there's anything we need to concede, we want to concede it right now.

Got any way in us that has been opposing you, that has been hard hearted, even right now, as we're wrestling with it.

God, we don't want to be ones that wrestle with God like this so we can see God is right.

God, would you help us to lose sin out of our hands, to come to you again and again and again, freely accepted because of the blood of Jesus Christ.

God, would you help us to review every day that it's not the stuff in our life or the people or the situations, it's you that are our source.

Thank you, jesus, in Christ's name, amen.

Hey, thank you so much for joining us today.

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