Plagues 3 & 4: Gnats & Flies

Morning, church.

Hear now the word of the true and living God, Exodus eight, starting in verse sixteen.

Then the Lord said to Moses, Say to Aaron, Stretch out your staff and strike the dust of the earth, so that it may become gnats in all the land of Egypt.

And they did so.

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 in all the land of Egypt.

The magicians tried by their secret arts to produce gnats, but they could not.

So there were gnats on man and beast.

Then the magician said to Pharaoh, This is the finger of God.

But Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and he would not listen to them as the Lord had said.

Then the Lord said to Moses, Rise up early in the morning and present yourself to Pharaoh as he goes out into the water, and say to him, Thus says the Lord, let my people go, that they may serve me, or else, if you will not let my people go, behold, I will send swarms of flies on you and your servants and your people, and into your houses, and the houses of the Egyptians shall be filled with swarms of flies, and also the ground on which they stand.

But on that day I will set apart the land of Goshen where my people dwell, so that no swarms of flies shall be there, that you may know that I am the Lord in the midst of the earth.

Thus I will put a division between my people and your people.

Tomorrow this sh this sign shall happen.

And the Lord did so.

There came great swarms of flies into the house of Pharaoh and into his servants' houses throughout all the land of Egypt, the land was ruined by the swarms of flies.

Then Pharaoh called Moses and Aaron and said, Go, sacrifice to your God within the land.

But Moses said, It would not be right to do so, for the offerings we shall sacrifice to the Lord our God are an abomination to the Egyptians.

If we sacrifice offerings abominable to the Egyptians before their eyes, will they not stone us?

We must go three days' journey into the wilderness and sacrifice to the Lord our God, as he tells us.

So Pharaoh said, I will let you go to sacrifice to the Lord your God in the wilderness, only you must not go very far away.

Plead for me.

Then Moses said, Behold, I am going out from you, and I will plead with the Lord that the swarms of flies may depart from Pharaoh, from his servants, and from his people tomorrow.

Only let not Pharaoh cheat again by not letting the people go to sacrifice to the Lord.

So Moses went out from Pharaoh and prayed to the Lord, and the Lord did as Moses asked, and removed the swarms of flies from Pharaoh, from his servants, and from his people.

Not one remained.

But Pharaoh hardened his heart this time also and did not let the people go.

This is the word of the Lord.

Please be seated.

Thank you for joining us this morning.

My name is James Rathman.

I'm the pastor here at Redemption Church Denver.

We are continuing our summer of plagues, and we are covering the third and the fourth plague this summer.

So it's going to be a buggy morning.

Before we move into our text today, oh, uh quick announcement.

Um in the newsletter, it said that there'd be a members' meeting today after church.

Um because of some errors on my part, there will not be a members meeting today after church.

I'm so sorry.

Um I was I was very frustrated with myself for for this for this oversight.

And everyone I've shared with this morning that there's not going to be a members meeting, they're like, oh, great.

So anyway.

Uh uh Yeah, perhaps there's a deeper problem going on.

So before we move into our text today, let's pray together.

Father, we praise you for the assurance of pardon that we receive in just confessing our sin to you.

We praise you that we might sing and it be true that our worth is not found in the things we own, in our accomplishments, in the shame that we carry, Lord, but it is found in what you accomplished on the cross.

Lord, I pray that you would teach our hearts to rest in that, that we would learn as we see you deliver your people, that we are a people who are saved by what you have done.

And that you would teach us to receive that free gift, to see it clearly laid out in the wonders that you accomplished on behalf of your people as you delivered them out of Egypt, and that we might learn to trust and depend on you for your salvation.

We lift this up in Jesus' name, amen.

So, plagues three and four, we're seeing uh the grip of Pharaoh on the Israelites.

You can think of it through each of the ten plagues as like being pried, his hands are being pried off of the Israelites one finger at a time until he will no longer be able to grip them.

And you can almost see as the plagues go on his grip weakening.

And we'll see that happen in a number of ways this morning.

His grip will weaken in the magician's inability to mimic the plagues for the first time.

We'll see his grip weaken in that he begins to bargain instead of just saying, no, you can't go.

He's looking for these angles to bargain and try and maintain whatever sort of power that he has.

And we'll see the Lord make a clear distinction between Pharaoh's people and his people, those who the Lord calls my people.

So let's look at this this morning.

Let's begin in uh this first plague, which is a plague of gnats.

And in Exodus 8, verse 16, it says, Then the Lord said to Moses, Say to Aaron, stretch out your staff and strike the dust of the earth, so that it may become gnats in all the land of Egypt.

Exodus 8:16

Now, this plague is one of the short ones.

There's a couple of these, and in this one there's no warning to Pharaoh, and there's no uh response from Pharaoh afterwards.

He's sort of left out of this particular plague.

This must have been the type of thing where Pharaoh had been not paying attention and had sort of settled after the frogs had dissipated, and now the Lord is shaking him out of that comfort that he thought he might have found himself in.

Now, this plague, my voice is running away, as it may be some of those frogs from last week went into my throat.

We're getting too comfortable together when you can say womp womp.

Uh so uh this plague of gnats, it's a difficult one to translate.

And and in fact, uh the gnats and the flies are both difficult to translate.

We don't uh know the particular bug that it is referring to.

In fact, it may be referring to mice or vermin for the gnats.

The flies, we don't know particularly what they're referring to.

It could be just flies like a house fly, it could be um like a stinging sort of fly, like a horse fly.

Um, but for the gnats, we it what's important to recognize is the totalizing nature of this third plague.

The description that's given is to strike the dust of the earth so that it may become gnats.

Now, this is a phrase that we became familiar with in wow, thank you.

Thanks, Bo.

Bo.

Wish you would stick around, man.

You're moving to Slovakia.

Anyway, uh, I'll take a sip.

Marco Rubio.

All right.

It's a Hebrew phrase that is uh uh to show just an innumerable amount, an unfathomable amount.

Uh, and we saw this in the promise that's given to Abraham by the Lord, which is that your offspring will be like the dust of the earth.

And so this is uh a way of saying it is completely innumerable.

And that that phrase, which is used for the people of God as this glorious promise, is now used against Pharaoh as this threat of a plague.

And that's what happens.

It is this totalizing response.

And as Pharaoh is left out of the story, the magicians take a central position in this third plague.

In Exodus 8, 18, it says, the magicians tried by their secret arts to produce gnats, but they could not.

So there were gnats on man and beast.

This is the first time that the magicians have been foiled in their ability to replicate the plague.

When there's that showdown with the snakes, the magicians are able to turn their staff into a snake as well.

Now, of course, their staff is devoured by the staff of Aaron and Moses.

And in the Nile turning to blood in the first plague, the magicians are able to turn water into blood.

And that is enough.

Just seeing that was enough to harden the heart of Pharaoh.

And likewise in the last plague, although Pharaoh didn't ask and his heart was not hardened by this, the magicians are able to create more frogs to come out of the Nile.

And we've noticed that the pattern is the magicians are able to demonstrate this incredible power that is, we that we aren't able to understand exactly how they're doing this, what their secret arts are, the magic that they're participating in.

But we notice that all this power is able to do is to multiply the plagues against them.

That they have no power to find a relief from the plagues.

You can imagine that these plagues have a sort of function to them, and all they are able to do is to gain that function.

Let the reader understand.

But the magicians find themselves unable.

Now, this is a dramatic breakdown for the Egyptians' whole frame of understanding.

Because there is a power to the magician, excuse me, to the Egyptians, that is, in a sense, higher than their gods.

And that is this secret magic.

In Egyptian mythology, there are stories of gods having competitions with one another to establish their hierarchy.

And the way that the competitions are settled is by which God is able to demonstrate the greatest magical power.

And so this shows us that there is this sort of understanding of this magic power that is behind all things in the Egyptian framework.

And this understanding of this power and ways to manipulate it is what holds the world together and what allows it to function in a predictable and profitable way for the Egyptians.

So now, when those who have the deepest wisdom in this magic are unable to meet the God of the Hebrews in this demonstration of his power, it is as though all of the power that the Egyptians have is being shown to be inadequate to the circumstances of what they are up against in these plagues.

And so it causes the magicians to say this incredible thing to Pharaoh.

In verse 19, it says, Then the magician said to Pharaoh, This is the finger of God.

Now you can see this fits perfectly the Egyptian framework.

If their gods establish their dominance by being able to demonstrate the greatest magic, then when they are unable to meet the God of the Hebrews, what's being clearly shown to them is this is a true God.

Now, they aren't, they don't say Yahweh.

You know, they they aren't referring to the covenant lord of the Hebrew people.

They say a more generic Elohim, which is still plural, and it could even refer to this is the finger of the gods.

But what is being demonstrated, and what the magicians now know, the closest people to Pharaoh in his court, what they are now saying to Pharaoh is we're up against something that is stronger than us.

And this is the last time that the magicians attempt to replicate what God is doing.

They will not attempt to do this anymore.

Now, it's important for us, you know, we think of ancient cultures, they're they're backwards, and of course they believe in magic because they didn't have the technology or the science that we have to be able to understand the world that we live in.

But I think that this is a this is a foolish way to think about these ancient cultures.

One of the reasons for that is the magic technology distinction, which we have and function, we think we think of these as modern people as very separate categories that never cross and never contaminate one another.

But the difference between technology and magic is only a difference of perceived understanding.

Magic is being able to operate in a causal way that extends our power into the world, where we think that we are able to trace the cause and effect patterns of why they take place.

That's did I say technology or magic when I started that?

I that's strike that, reverse it.

Technology is where we are we are able to extend our power into the world in a way that we think we can trace the causal pattern of why it is taking place.

Magic is a way that we extend our power into the world, but we're not able to clearly trace what the causal pattern is.

Now, when we think we trace a causal pattern, we often describe that as understanding or explanation of what is happening.

But oftentimes it's not really explanation of what is happening, it's just description of what is happening.

So if you were to consider, let me offer you, I'm I'm borrow, I'm borrowing this.

Um this is a distinction that I heard Doug Wilson make, and I think it's an excellent distinction between description and explanation.

So let me uh offer you an explanation of gravity.

Uh gravity is when an object, objects in space, because of their mass, they have an attraction to one another.

And so, because of this attraction to one another, they can affect each other in movement at great distances to one another.

Now, you ask, okay, that's an that's excellent.

Now, what is gravity?

And I'd say, well, gravity is when objects at a distance are able to have this power over one another so that we can describe their action, even though they're not physically connected, there's this distance that takes place.

And you say, that's a wonderful description that you've given me, but I'm asking for an explanation.

What is it?

What is that thing that's happening?

I'd say, well, that thing that's happening is they're operating at a distance from one another.

You know, it's so I'm just trying to draw our attention to we often think we're explaining something when we're merely describing it.

And because we sort of uh like a like a coin that is worn off and lost its embossment, and we forgot what it stood for in the first place, we sort of have forgotten that what we're often doing is offering clearer and more precise descriptions of things, but we're we're still unable to offer this explanation of what is the thing itself?

What is what is that thing?

Can we name it?

Is there something there to name?

So when we forget that we're often just describing and not really explaining, then we think we've crossed into the world of mere technology and out of the world of magic.

But I just want to soften that border because I think that the way that we approach, put our faith in technology and the advancement of technology serves the same god-like function in our culture as magic would have served in the Egyptian culture.

And so that if we were to go back and experience these plagues, we wouldn't be the one sitting there thinking, like, oh my gosh, these you know, magicians, of course they can't do this.

There's not they don't really know what they're doing, there's nothing really happening here.

Of course they can't uh stand up against the God of the Hebrews who is the true God.

But then rewind, you know, we've had a plague recently, just in the past, you know, remember 2020?

Do you guys remember?

Okay, so how uh do you think technology solved or multiplied our experience of that?

That could be debated, but it can at least be debated.

When we had the technology to absolutely remove ourselves from one another and think, you know what?

Just me talking through a screen is sufficient human interaction.

Do you think that that technology decreased our collective derangement?

In our ability to solve that problem through a mere technological means?

Or did we all lose our minds?

And when that sort of thing happens, I think that, you know, uh it's almost hard to remember, but back in like from like 2010 till 2019, like money was cheap and startups were starting up, and there was and we there was like there was a time, this is hard to remember, but there was a time where we we didn't doubt technological innovation.

We were really optimistic about what it could accomplish.

And it was almost like uh like we're we're we're on the border of a utopia.

If we can just get these things clear, you know, we'll be able to connect the whole world.

And we did, you know, we have connected the whole world.

I heard an unbelievable statistic yesterday at lunch that that the amount of information that we create doubles every year.

Or or I'm not gonna be able to say this clearly.

The amount of information that we create is m is double all the information that has ever been created in the world's history every year.

So that means that including 2023, we're doubling everything in 2024.

That's an incredible amount of information.

It's an incredible amount of connection.

And it seems like it's insufficient to solve the most basic problems that we face.

That this I I mean, that's an almost magical power.

This this incredible amount of power that we are able to extend into the world, and we're just as scared, we're just as anxious, we're unable to establish a clear sort of unity together, we're unable to cultivate agreement, we're unable to cultivate wisdom, but we had a clear faith in that.

And so this sort of breakdown is similar to that sort of breakdown.

It's like if you want to, like now is if you have a book idea that basically amounts to phones bad for you, get it published, because that is they are buying those books right now.

Now is the time to write that book.

It's like phones are bad.

This is the insight that you can have right now.

Now that means that there's been this breakdown of our faith and our ability to technologically solve the greatest problems in humanity.

And so that's similar to what happens here when the magicians say our magic, the thing that we had bet on as the power to control the world so that we might be profitable in it, doesn't work.

It's insufficient to face the God of the Hebrews.

You see how this is the unwinding of a whole cultural framework.

This is the breakdown of the greatest power of the greatest empire in the world.

And it happens in the folks that are closest to Pharaoh.

So now Pharaoh sees the terror of what's happening in front of him.

And then he goes to his closest ones that are able to say, we know the way the real power works, and we know how to really extend power into the world.

And they're saying, This is the finger of God.

There's something else happening here.

This is what God is exposing.

And if we have eyes to see it, we can see that this is what God is always exposing.

The world has limits built into it.

Limits of humanity.

These limits are shown, like in the Tower of Babel, even with absolute unity, in a perfectly shared language, in a clear vision of all the people in the world, we are unable to reach so high to save ourselves.

God is always exposing that.

In anything that we see as our final hope, if we all just get together and we finally hope together to save ourselves, we will discover that there is another limit there.

And it will be exposed by the God of the Hebrews, who is constantly teaching us, He is the only one who can save us.

He is the only aim high enough to hold us together.

He is the only true and final hope in the world.

And this gets clearly exposed in that incredible confession of the magicians.

And I am not the one who holds the world together.

There is one who is above me.

This is the one thing that Pharaoh will not say.

And so, because of the arrogance of Pharaoh against the true God, his nation will collapse, and he will lose that which he is trying to grip so tightly.

The next plague flies.

This is the fourth plague, and you can think of it as beginning our second series of three plagues.

Because there's like a restart that happens.

Because for the first plague of the Nile turning to blood, they are instructed to go meet Pharaoh in the morning by the water.

And here again, they are instructed to go meet Pharaoh in the morning by the water.

It's sort of a restart.

Now, several commentators that I read think that the reason that we see this pattern of Egyptians going down to the water in the morning is because this was a ritual of worship for the Egyptian gods, particularly the god Hopi, the fertility god of the Nile.

And so many actually think that they would go down and their washing in the water in the morning was actually a cleansing ritual of their idols.

So they would bring their idols down to the river and cleanse them in the morning.

And so you can see why God would meet Pharaoh at this very place where his gods are on display and where he's trusting in them.

Because God is has made it known that his purpose in these plagues is to humiliate and unmask the gods of the Egyptians, to show that he is the true God.

And so it is another god competition that is taking place, like uh like uh Elijah and the priests of Baal.

It is that same sort of sort of format.

And so they meet at this place where the gods of Egypt are clearly on display.

And it makes sense that we would see that these plagues constantly return to the water because the final standoff will take place at the waters, and we will find out who is the God that has the power over the waters.

And God will wash away the Egyptians and will bring out the Israelites on dry land.

And we will look back at the times that Pharaoh met Moses and Aaron at the waters and think, You fool, you fool.

So many opportunities to see and see clearly.

So they meet down by the waters and say, Let my people go, that they may serve me.

And this one comes with an or else in verse 21 or else, if you will not let my people go, behold, I will send swarms of flies on you and your servants and your people, and into your houses, and the houses of the Egyptians shall be filled with swarms of flies, and also the ground on which they stand.

So we see that same sort of language.

Once again, flies, we don't know what particular types uh uh what particular insect this is referring to.

Um it could just be houseflies or stinging flies.

Either way, doesn't seem very good.

And it will be totalizing.

We hear that language of swarms, which we had heard in Genesis, as God is the one who brings this abundance as he causes the swarms.

We heard in Exodus 1, as the Israelites are described in their multiplication as swarming in Egypt, and now those blessings for God's people, that same language is used in terms of a curse for Pharaoh.

But there is a difference between this plague and all of the previous plagues.

If you consider the last plague, the point of saying it would be like the dust of the earth is to say that this is an absolute and totalizing number of gnats, that they are over everything and everywhere.

So we see the absoluteness of the Lord's power demonstrated in this.

But for this plague, the Lord makes a distinction.

Verses 22 and 23 it says, But on that day, the day that the flies come, I will set apart the land of Goshen, where my people dwell, so that no swarms of flies shall be there, that you may know that I am the Lord in the midst of the earth.

Thus I will put a division between my people and your people.

Tomorrow this sign shall happen.

For the first time in the plagues, the Lord is making clear that there is a distinction that he is drawing between the Israelites and the Egyptians, and he calls the Israelites my people.

He says, In the land of Goshen where my people dwell, this is what Moses is relaying as the word of the Lord to Pharaoh, to which Pharaoh hears and says, Your people, they're my people.

I know they're my people, because when I say go make bricks and I don't give them any straw, you know what they do?

They go and they try and make as many bricks as they can without straw.

And when they don't, I beat them.

They're my people.

But the Lord is saying plainly, there will be a distinction between my people and your people, and you will be able to see it, that my people, when my wrath comes, will be spared.

There won't be a fly in Goshen, but your people will be covered in swarms.

And this word distinction or division, thus I will put a division, it's translated here between my people, is a translation of the word that is also translated redemption.

There will be a redemption of my people, which means that there's something like the wrath is coming over all of them, but I'm I'm purchasing them.

I'm making a payment so that it doesn't cover them.

I'm buying my people from you, and they will be mine.

Imagine.

Imagine being, and this is exactly what happens with the plague, and I want you to imagine now being an Israelite in the land of Goshen.

And you hear of these plagues that are happening, and you hear, did you hear with the gnats the magicians, they weren't able to replicate this one.

This great power that we've been under and unable to free ourselves from, it seems like it's crumbling.

And did you hear what Moses and Aaron relayed for this plague?

Have you noticed that there's no flies anywhere today?

Did you hear from the Egyptians what it's like over there?

They're covered.

It's a plague.

It's in their houses, it's on all of Pharaoh's people, it's on all his servants, it's on it's on all the people of Egypt, but here we are being spared.

The Lord, did you hear what he called us?

He said, My people.

He's coming to deliver us.

The Lord is coming to set us free.

Imagine what this means for the Israelites, the power that's being demonstrated against the ones who've had the power to oppress them.

So Pharaoh sees this distinction that is made, and you can almost sense that his back is pressed up against the wall, where he might have leaned against his magicians, and he might have trusted in the power that he would have been able to demonstrate if this were just a contest of the gods.

He might have still had this hope that he would be able to demonstrate enough power to overthrow the god of the Hebrews.

And then the order that he had always known would be restored with himself at the top of it.

But now that the mag but now that the magic of Egypt had fallen apart, Pharaoh takes on a much more pragmatic means of dealing with this.

We begin to see Pharaoh start grasping to maintain whatever power it is that he can.

In Exodus 8, 25, then Pharaoh called Moses and Aaron and said, Go sacrifice to your God within the land.

So the concession is you can sacrifice to your God.

You will allow you to have this God be the God of your people.

But when you sacrifice to him, you can't leave.

You're not permitted to leave the land.

You have to stay here within my boundaries and within my borders.

And so you can almost hear Pharaoh saying something.

He's saying something like, Look, I don't care that you have your own God.

That's great.

Congratulations.

That's a wonderful, wonderful thing.

You know, I've got some gods of my own that I worship as well.

Have this God and have him close in your heart personally.

I don't care that you worship him, but you can only worship him in the ways that I tell you.

And you can only worship him in the ways that I permit you to worship him.

And if you worship him outside of the boundaries of the ways that I have permitted you to worship him, and if you sort of uh breach over into a worship of him that might be offensive to the Egyptians, or that might cause some sort of uh you know uproar, or or if you know, if the Egyptians happen to stone you because your worship of your God is an abomination to them, then you know, so be it.

But as I said, you're free to worship your God.

This is the bargain that Pharaoh offers.

And this is a classic bargain.

Of course you're free.

Of course you're free to worship your God.

Of course you're free to hold him close and honor him, but don't bring that God language into the workplace.

Don't bring that language of God into the schools.

Don't meet together in these times where we tell you not to meet.

Don't worship in this particular way or worship in ways that would be offensive to the Egyptians around you.

But you're free to have your God.

See, this is a this is a classic tyrannical bargain to say that that your worship of God is something that's just yours and is just for you in the private space of your own heart.

But it it can only be expressed in the permissible ways that we will allow.

That is not freedom.

Because the way that we worship God is not our decision.

The way that we worship God is God's decision.

He is the one who teaches us and requires of us right worship of Him.

That is not something that we all just get together and agree upon.

It is commanded of us.

And so Moses said, It would not be right to do so, he says to Pharaoh, for the offerings we shall sacrifice to the Lord our God are an abomination to the Egyptians.

If we sacrifice offerings abominable to the Egyptians before their eyes, will they not stone us?

Yes, you you're you're completely free to discuss this in any way.

There will just be radical and extreme and dire consequences for you if you do.

You're allowed to hold whatever opinion you would like to about uh Pride Month and your workplace, but if you share them, you're fired.

Okay.

There's just so you'll you'll just be stoned.

We must go three days' journey into the wilderness and sacrifice to the Lord our God as he tells us.

Finally, what is what is plain?

The Lord is the one who tells us how to worship him.

So why is it that God cares so much about how we worship him?

Look, God is happy.

You know how God is doing today?

Very well.

Just like yesterday.

You know how glorified he is today in himself?

Perfectly.

He is, you know, you know what God is to say?

He's unbothered.

He's completely fine.

He has absolute glory in himself, absolute joy in himself, perfect enjoyment of community within the persons of the Trinity, absolute unity in his purposes and intentions, enjoying the love and glory that he has enjoyed since eternity past and will enjoy into the eternity in the future.

We cannot add or detract from that.

By sinning, you take away none of his glory.

By seeking to honor him, he's not like, great, I got ten more glory units.

Trinity, let us enjoy these together.

The people have given me more.

He's not like the God of the Egyptians, the gods of the Egyptians, who need to be conjured and coaxed, who have requirements of their people, because they have needs that the people then need to satisfy.

Our God has no needs.

So he does not care how we worship him, because if we don't, if you don't come to me in a way that is just so, you know, I like my lattes, extra hot, and when you hand it to me, you hand it to me at this angle, and he's not like like late-stage Howard Hughes or something.

He is perfectly satisfied in himself.

So why is it that he cares how we worship him?

It is because he knows that when we worship him in any way that is coaxed or subtly placing anything above him in our worship, which is possible and easy to do in our worship of the Lord, that we are worshiping him in a way that is actually worshiping something else, that when we do that, we are enslaved to whatever that other thing is.

That if they were to say to Pharaoh, sure, Pharaoh, we will hold this God, who is the greatest and highest power of all powers, we will hold him so close and personally in our hearts that we will just worship him however you say we should worship him.

God knows ultimately you're worshiping Pharaoh.

And in your worship of Pharaoh, you are enslaved to Pharaoh.

God cares about how we worship him because he knows that he is the only thing, he is the only true God.

That when we give our absolute worship to him, we are not enslaved, we are set free in him.

He cares about how we worship him, not because he needs some special way, but because he loves us.

And he knows that the only true satisfaction that we as his creatures can find, our only hope in life and in death is him.

That we are not our own.

And you know what else that means?

We're not someone else's, we're his.

Your God.

I am the one who is in control here, and I am the one who is letting you go.

But then the strange caveat, only you must not go very far away.

It's vague and it's not, it's it's almost like uh like a rule that can't be broken because however far away they go, they could just say it's not very far to us.

We're from Wyoming.

This is like a normal drive.

It's far to you.

But then Pharaoh, it's almost like it burst out of him: plead for me.

Plead for me.

He he won't let his station be violated as the absolute authority, but then he knows he can't get himself out of this.

Moses says, only let Moses says that he will he will do this, he prays, he will pray to the Lord on his behalf, he will plead for him, the Lord will relent.

Only let not Pharaoh cheat again by not letting the people go to sacrifice to the Lord.

Moses is not convinced of that Pharaoh has had some change of heart.

He just sees plainly, look, you're going to cheat again.

I know this is going to happen, and so I'm going to warn you that this shouldn't happen, so that it's made plain when it does happen.

Moses prays.

In this really succinct phrase, it says, there is not a fly left in Egypt.

They vanished, they were gone.

Now imagine being an Egyptian, like we imagined the Israelites.

That was a crazy plague.

Have you talked to any of the Israelites lately?

Have you heard from anybody in Goshen?

What was it like over there?

I bet it was pretty bad over there.

It's pretty fertile ground.

Flies love that sort of thing.

They might have said.

And the Israelite says, no flies.

There were no flies.

He's our God.

And he's delivering us.

And the Egyptian might have thought, how could I get a God like that?

The God that I have been worshiping, the God that I've committed my life to, the power that I've been serving in Pharaoh, it's just leading to destruction.

And I even hear word that it's even crumbling where Pharaoh is.

That even his magicians are saying to him, there's something else going on here that we don't have the power to attain.

If this is going to continue, is there a way that your God could be my God?

Now this was available for the Egyptians, and many will come out with the Israelites as they recognize the God of the Hebrews is the true God.

But it is not available to them in a way like it is available to us in Jesus Christ.

All of what you hope in for your salvation, for your rescue from whatever thing you're facing right now, you will find that the greatest experts, the best tools and tactics, the greatest technological intervention, the clearest mind set on accomplishing it, their limit will be exposed.

And you'll find that these are ultimately ineffective.

You need someone to come from the outside and save you.

You need someone who is able to atone for your sin.

Because even if you had the best of all possible opportunities, you would be the one trying to pull it off.

You need your heart to be changed.

You need one who has the very power of God to say, you're my people.

And now this offer is open to anyone.

Come to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Trust in him for salvation, and you can say, My God will save me.

My God has accomplished this.

He is my God.

I am, we are his people.

This is our hope that is shown in the distinction that the Lord makes.

It is very distinct.

If you do not come to him, you will experience the plague.

But in him is this offer, this unthinkable offer that he could be your God too.

Leave your others.

Come find salvation in him.

Are there any questions today?

Did Pharaoh harden his own heart or was God doing that?

How do we ensure we don't harden our own hearts against God?

The answer to the first question is yes.

The text goes back and forth describing Pharaoh hardening his own heart or God hardening his heart, in that we see demonstrated these two levels of reality, one of which is that everything and all things at all times are happening according to the intentions and purposes of God, according to his eternal decrees, and our will matters and exists and plays a real part in the world, and so we can harden our own hearts.

If you can reconcile those two things, I'll give you 20 bucks.

We harden our own hearts.

It happens subtly because it happens by trust and worship of things that aren't God.

By these ultimate hopes of salvation that just fix, you know, we we've we fixate on.

I was having lunch yesterday and we were talking about like, isn't it just such a guy thing to just kind of like fixate on how much money you're making?

Just like, this just becomes like we sung this morning, like my worth is not in what I own.

But I can't stop thinking about this thing that once I buy it, then I'll then maybe something will happen.

Or once like my house finally gets settled, or once I finally figure out like how to parent this kid, then I'll I'll be fine.

And so then our hearts get cultivated in worship towards those things.

And suddenly we're no longer able to connect with the Lord.

And his promises, which which will sound which will sound like, hey, that thing that your ultimate and final hope is, die to that.

Die to that thing.

And then any call of the Lord to us sounds like, oh, that just sounds like death.

And we we forget, like he's saying, I'm calling you to come and die to that thing, because you're enslaved to that.

And I will resurrect you so that you might be free in my presence.

I'm telling you how to worship me.

Because you're becoming enslaved to these other things that you're worshiping, and you ought not to be enslaved to them, but you should be free in my presence.

So we have ordinary means, but the best means that you have for not hardening your heart against the Lord is worship.

Worship of the true God.

God has given this to us.

This morning, we are practicing that.

That we might worship the Lord and our hearts might be softened towards him, the blinders might fall off, we might see plainly.

He is good.

He doesn't enslave, he is the one who sacrificed that I might be saved, he is utterly trustworthy.

He is the one who didn't spare his own son, but delivered him over for us all.

How will he not also with him freely give us all things?

He is the one who justifies.

Who what is there to condemn me?

And we see once again together and our hearts get shaped towards it.

We honor him and we glorify him, and we say, if there's only our only hope is him, and then we learn to trust and hope in him, but just by these ordinary means singing, receiving the word, taking the sacrament, prayer, loving one another, repenting, and practicing trust.

And our hearts will be softened towards him.