I Don't Know The LORD | Exodus 7-10 | Spencer Creech

Make disciples for his glory.

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Thanks for listening.

Well, good morning, Spring Valley Baptist family.

How are y'all doing this morning?

Wonderful, wonderful.

As you can see, I am not past the late.

I believe yesterday, I think with the uh Allegheny's loss, he is a personal day.

And so he texted me at about 11 o'clock saying if I could fill in for him.

So it's not how it happened, not how it happened.

Um hey, if we have not met before, my name is Spencer.

I am the Minister of Students here at Spring Valley Baptist, and I've been privileged with the opportunity to bring to you uh the word of the Lord this morning.

And so this morning we are continuing our study in the book of Exodus, and we've arrived at the plagues.

Why did the Lord send the plagues?

He tells Moses that they may know that I am the Lord.

And this is actually the main conflict between Pharaoh and Moses.

If we can go back to Exodus chapter 5, verses 1 and 2, the scripture reads, Afterward Moses and Aaron went and said to Pharaoh, Thus says the Lord the God of Israel, let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.

Exodus 5:1

Verse 2.

But Pharaoh said, Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice and let Israel go?

I do not know the Lord, and moreover, I will not let Israel go.

Pharaoh does not know the Lord.

And what we find in these chapters is that the Lord cares deeply about making himself known and how we understand him.

And so, church family, I invite you to ponder this question in your heart.

Who is the Lord?

And second, do you know the Lord?

For many of us, I think we can fall into one of three categories.

We often forget who he is, or we know him in part, or we don't really know him at all.

And here's why it's important Eternity is a matter of knowing the one true God.

John 17, verse 3, Jesus says, and this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God.

John 17:3

Not a knockoff, not something that looks similar.

So who is he then?

And I'm gonna go ahead and give you the answer right at the beginning of this message.

The Lord is the name above all names.

And in today's message, we're gonna see the Lord's supremacy through the plagues of Egypt and how it connects to Jesus Christ.

So would you join with me as we pray?

Heavenly Father, God, I pray that Father, won't you soften our hearts this morning?

Your word shows us that you have supremacy over everything, including our very hearts.

And so we ask for you to soften our hearts.

And to see the life that you can provide.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

The first point I have for you this morning, Yahweh, the Lord, is supreme over everyone and everything.

When I read about the plagues that God sent down to Egypt, I am reminded of when my wife and I experienced our own sort of plague.

About six years ago, we lived in an apartment in Hartsville, South Carolina.

If you know where that town's at, that is in Darlington County.

And while we were there living in an apartment, we were looking to save some money.

And so we found a much uh smaller and cheaper apartment to move into.

Now, we know cheaper doesn't always mean better now, does it?

And so after moving in, it did not take long for my wife and I to notice that we started to have red bumps on our skin, especially around the feet and around the ankles.

And after a little bit of investigation, we realized that there were flea bites.

So, what do you do?

Well, you call pest control, right?

And so they came and they sprayed, and a couple days later, they start showing up again.

So, what do we do?

Well, we start putting sticky traps all around the house.

We start wearing long white socks, and I swear you could look down and you'd see those sticky traps filled with little black dots.

You look down at your socks, you'd see dozens of little black dots on your socks.

And so we would call pest control back, and we tried washing everything.

We tried placing, even the internet told us bowls of soap and water around the house.

Um, but really nothing seemed to help.

Thankfully, the church at the time I served at, they were able to uh get Sophie and I a hotel room for a couple of nights, and when we couldn't do that, we would stay at our parents' house here in Columbia.

It would make the drive back in the daytime for work back to Hartsville.

But we were absolutely miserable during that time.

We had a plague of fleas in our little apartment.

And after the third failed uh pest control attempt, we were out of that apartment within about six weeks, and we ended up buying a house instead.

I still never got the security deposit back on that apartment.

Um, yeah, plagues are a great way to get people out of something.

So we had our own little Exodus.

And here we have an Exodus chapter 7 through 10, the ten plagues.

Exodus 7 · chapter mention

God wants to rescue his people out of slavery in Egypt, but Pharaoh will not let those people, the Hebrews, go willingly.

Now, Egypt has built a polytheistic religion around false Egyptian gods.

The Egyptians, they don't know who the Lord is.

So the Lord uses the plagues to say to them, This is who I am.

But before the plagues, the Lord does mercifully send a sign.

In Exodus chapter 7, Moses and Aaron pronounce to Pharaoh, they say to him, Release the Hebrews, the Lord says, so we can worship in the wilderness.

Exodus 7 · chapter mention

And Pharaoh says, Well, prove yourself by working a miracle.

And so Aaron throws his staff down before Pharaoh, and it turns into a snake.

Well, Pharaoh's magicians, they also throw their staffs down onto the ground, and it turns into snakes as well.

But Aaron's staff swallows up the magician's staff.

And side note, Pharaoh would have worn a cobra crown upon his head.

The symbolism is clear.

The power behind Moses is greater than the power behind Pharaoh.

And so, because Pharaoh did not listen to this first sign, God begins sending the prig, the plagues.

Now, I'm only going to cover the first nine plagues, and I'm going to try to summarize them so we don't get too bogged down into the details.

In the first plague, God commands Moses and Aaron to strike the Nile, turning its water into blood, forcing the Egyptians to dig around the river to find fresh water.

But the magicians were also able to turn the water into blood.

So Pharaoh's heart remained hardened.

And remember, it was once the Pharaoh who turned the Nile with b uh red with the blood of Hebrew boys, but this time it is the Lord who turns it into blood.

In the second plague, God sends a swarm of frogs upon Egypt.

Frogs came upon everything houses, palaces, beds, kitchens, bowls.

But the magicians were also able to produce frogs.

Then came the third plague.

God commanded Moses and Aaron to strike the dust of the earth, and the dust turned into a plague of gnats.

And this time, and moving forward, the magicians could not replicate this wonder.

The magicians, realizing they were outmatched, told Pharaoh, Pharaoh, this is the finger of God.

Yet Pharaoh's heart remained hardened.

Let's be real, this was never a really a fair contest to begin with.

Whether the magicians were using parlor tricks or whether they were using real witchcraft, the Lord was always and is always infinitely more powerful.

Now, uh, these weren't just random plagues.

None of them are that we're going to walk through.

While not explicit in the scripture, scholars agree that the Lord seems to be targeting the gods of Egypt in these plagues.

Now, it can be hard to agree upon the exact Egyptian god that may have been targeted.

So the ones I have identified may not be exact, but I do think it's close.

So first we have Happy, and we actually have images of are they on the screen?

Here we go.

We have Happy as the first uh Egyptian god.

This was their god of the Nile.

You can see he's blue, looks like he's got some reeds that he's kind of growing out of his head.

He is the god of the Nile.

You have Heket, that was their goddess of fertility and associated with frogs.

And you also have Gib, who was their god of the earth.

And so by turning the Nile into blood, the Lord demonstrates that he alone controls the source of life.

He holds life and death.

And he is also sovereign over procreation.

And multiplying the frogs, he shows that the frog goddess must bend to his will, and he is God of the earth, even the dust beneath their feet.

So let's continue.

Because Pharaoh's heart remained hardened, in the fourth plague, God sent a swarm of flies upon Egypt.

Yet in this plague and the ones also moving forward, God makes a distinction between where the Hebrews lived and where the Hebrew, excuse me, where the Egyptians lived and where the Hebrews lived.

The flies swarmed everywhere except where the Hebrews resided in the land of Goshen.

Why?

To show that the Lord protects his own and that he really is the God of the Hebrews.

Then came the fifth plague.

The Lord sent a plague upon the livestock in Egypt.

Their horses, donkeys, camels, flocks, herds, they all started dropping dead, yet Pharaoh's heart still remained hardened.

And in the sixth plague, the Lord commanded Moses to take ash from the furnace, to throw it in the air.

And when it landed on the Egyptians, it became sores and boils.

When Moses went to meet Pharaoh, the magicians could not even stand in Moses' presence because of their boils.

And that's the last we hear of them.

Now we have these three Egyptian gods.

The first one being Kephri was the Egyptian god associated with creation and the beetle.

Hathor was the cow goddess, right here in the middle.

You can see the horns.

And Sekmet was the goddess associated with disease and healing.

Yet the Lord demonstrated that he alone controls creation and by multiplying the fly shows that even the insect god must submit to his will.

The Lord in killing their livestock shows that not even their sacred cattle, which they considered to be gods, could be protected.

And the Lord through the boil shows that he holds both sickness and health in the palms of his hand.

He reigns supreme over every God.

Because remember, we won't cover ten.

Because Pharaoh's heart was still hardened in the seventh plague, the Lord sent a hailstorm with thunder and lightning upon the Egyptians.

Interestingly, some of the Egyptians, upon hearing that this plague was coming, they actually heeded the word of the Lord and brought their servants in and the animals into their houses to protect them.

And at this point in the story, upon seeing the utter destruction of Egypt, Pharaoh actually confesses his sin to Moses.

And he pleads for Moses to remove the storm, promising to release the Hebrews.

But like many times before this encounter, when the plague ceased, Pharaoh again hardened his heart and he goes back on his word.

Then there came the eighth plague.

The Lord sent a swarm of locusts that ate everything that the hailstorm left behind.

And even Pharaoh's advisors pleaded with him to release the Hebrews because, quote, Egypt was ruined.

And then the ninth plague.

The Lord sent darkness over Egypt for three days, except the land of Goshen where the Hebrews lived.

The scripture says that this darkness was so heavy it could be felt, and that the Egyptians stayed in their homes for those three days.

And at this plague, Pharaoh tells Moses to never see his face again.

And on the day he does, Pharaoh would kill him.

Now we have those Egyptian gods up here on the screen.

Now, Noops was the Egyptian goddess of the sky, represented with the blue sym with the view figurine with the stars on uh on her.

And then we have um Osiris was the god associated with vegetation and death here in the middle, and Ra was the sun god.

You can see the sun above Ra's head.

In the hailstorm, the Lord demonstrated that he alone controls the sky.

In the swarm of locusts, the Lord shows that he is sovereign over earth's food supply, and when someone lacks or when someone has plenty, and in the darkness, the Lord shows that he, not Ra, even commands light itself.

In fact, the Lord is light.

Church family, Yahweh is supreme over everyone and everything.

Now, usually in the account of the plagues, the phrase Pharaoh's heart was hardened appears multiple times.

But in Exodus 9 and 12, uh, Exodus chapter 9, verse 12, and a few other places, it very explicitly states this.

Exodus 9:12

The Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh.

And so, was Pharaoh free to choose what he was doing?

Or did the Lord take away his free will by forcing his heart to harden?

That's a tough question, isn't it?

Because it certainly has ramifications for everybody.

The scripture indicates both.

Even before the plagues began, Pharaoh had already rejected the Lord by asking, Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice?

He increases the labor of the Hebrews.

He was already rejecting the Lord.

Pharaoh chose to harden his own heart, and yet scripture also says that the Lord hardened it.

In Romans chapter 1, uh it teaches us that when people continually suppress truth and practice unrighteousness, that God may give them up over to their sin.

Romans 1 · chapter mention

Romans 1 24, therefore God gave them up in the lust of their hearts to impurity, to dishonoring their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worship and serve the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever.

Amen.

Romans 9 takes us even further.

Romans 9, verse 17.

Romans 9:17

For the scripture says to Pharaoh, Paul writes, For this very purpose I've raised you up that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.

So then, so then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.

Paul continues in Romans 9 saying that God is not unjust in doing this.

For he says, How can the clay say to its maker, I don't like the way you've made me?

So Pharaoh is indeed responsible for his own rebellion, and yet the Lord also has ultimate control over Pharaoh's heart.

Scripture demands that man's responsibility and God's sovereignty do coexist.

And though we may not understand how they work together, we must believe both in biblical tension.

The Lord playing a role in the hardening of Pharaoh's heart can bring frustration to some, though.

Knowing that God has this kind of sovereignty should not bring distress, though.

It should bring great hope.

Because if God was not supreme, church family, then the valleys in your life would be pointless and directionless and without hope.

And the good things in life would be nothing more but random chance, offering nothing but mere empty, temporary amusement.

And because the Lord is supreme, everything that has ever happened in your life, directly or indirectly, every spiritual attack on your life, every willful or sinful decision you've ever made, anything you've lacked every time the bank account showed zero, every time you've been cheated, every time you've cheated someone, every disease you've been afflicted with, every loss of life, every moment of celebration, every tear, every smile, every missed opportunity, every delay, every trophy, every failure, from when the doctor has delivered you out of the womb to when your family lowered you into the earth, to the hearts of your lost family members, a lukewarm spouse, a prodigal son, unbelieving and aging parents, to the heart of your boss and coworkers, your church family, politicians, the president, kings, dictators, nations around the world, to hurricanes and droughts and military conflict, to the rise of AI, from viruses that go global to the furthest edge of the universe and every star and galaxy in between, from Muhammad to Buddha to Joseph Smith to Confucius to every angel and demon, everything in heaven, everything in hell to the devil himself, all the way back to yes, even your own heart, the Lord reigns supreme over it all.

And so have hope.

Take heart.

The Lord reigns supreme over it all.

And scripture says, for those who love God and are called according to his purpose, he makes all things work together for their good.

And so, what is going on in your life?

What is the problem, the plague that you're facing?

Yahweh, the Lord, is here, and he is supreme over it.

Let that give you great hope.

Point number two.

Jesus Christ is Yahweh in the flesh, our great deliverer.

We're gonna be switching gears and taking a trip to the New Testament.

Mark chapter 8, verses 22 to 25.

Mark 8:22–25

And they came to Bethada, and some people brought to him Jesus, a blind man, and begged him to touch him.

And he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village.

And when he had Spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him.

He asked him, Do you see anything?

And he looked up and said, I see people, but they looked like trees walking.

Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again.

He opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.

So why are we reading this passage?

The question we are asking this morning is, Who is the Lord?

And I think this passage beautifully illustrates the bridge between what the Lord reveals about himself in the Old Testament, in the law, and in the prophets, and what he reveals about himself in Jesus Christ.

Mark is actually the only gospel that records this miracle in this detail, probably because the other gospel writers were disgusted with the use of Jesus a spit.

But also, there is a little bit of confusion.

Jesus seemingly has to perform this miracle twice in order to heal the man.

So did Jesus fail the first time in the miracle, or was Jesus trying to teach us something deeper?

Many scholars agree that Jesus was using this as an illustration.

The first healing to show how the law and how the prophets brought some clarity to the world who God is.

But like the first healing, things were still a little fuzzy.

The second healing to illustrate that he, Jesus, is the ultimate fulfillment and revelation of the Lord.

The plagues helped to show that the Lord is supreme.

But he also stepped off his pedestal in heaven to become the lowliest and humblest being in all creation by becoming the sacrificial lamb for every sin to be laid upon him.

The Lord did send plagues upon the earth to show his power, but the Lord also brought wrath upon his own son, Jesus Christ, to show his love.

The plagues help show us that God will hold man accountable for his sin.

But the cross shows us that for those who place their faith in Jesus Christ, God will hold himself accountable for their sin.

Jesus is Yahweh in the flesh, our great deliverer, who has delivered us from sin.

But like Pharaoh, it can sometimes be hard to always see our sin.

And even when we see it, and even Pharaoh acknowledges his sin.

If you read the whole narrative, he acknowledges his sin twice.

Sometimes we can still fall back to sin cycles.

When Sophie and I were living in that flea-infested apartment, it did not take long before we started wearing white socks on our feet, long white socks.

And it was only then that we could really see when the fleas tried to latch onto us.

If we don't understand the height of God's holiness and live with that backdrop in our life, we will never see or understand the depth of our sin and our depravity.

Do we know why we're sometimes okay with sin in our life?

Because we don't see how holy God is.

But when we drape ourselves in the clothes of light, when we hunger and when we thirst for righteousness, the tiniest of sin really start to bother us.

But sometimes it is just easier to let the fleas abide us and pretend everything is okay.

Because we're worried if we start looking, we'll see that there is an infestation of sin in our life.

But I have very good news for you.

Jesus is not scared to walk into your house if it's infested with sin.

As a matter of fact, that's kind of his thing.

That's why he came.

The scripture says that actually, if we say we have no sin, we make God out to be a liar.

Jesus says, I have not come for the well and for the healthy, but for the sick.

And so, church family, look upon the holiness and supremacy of the Lord.

And then won't we see how terrible sin is?

And in confession, if we're ready for true healing, invite Jesus into your heart and into your life and into your house.

Who is the Lord?

He is supreme over everyone and everything.

And he is also Jesus, Yahweh, in the flesh, our great deliverer.

Third point.

Throw away your old gods.

Bow and confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

It's interesting that in the plague of hail, some Egyptians started heeding the word of the Lord.

They stopped trusting in their gods of Egypt, and they were beginning to realize that what they were looking for in their Egyptian gods, whether it was fertility or good weather or healing or protection, the Lord was the one who met those fulfillments.

And there are also, church family, timeless sins and idols that you and I are still drawn to.

But the Lord will fulfill us in ways that those things never can.

Are we drawn to horoscopes, fortune cookies, Ouija boards, witchcraft?

Do we go to AI for things that we should go to Jesus about?

We desire to know for information, but those things will never satisfy.

Jesus alone knows your past and your present and your future.

He knows the information that you need.

He is the person with endless wisdom.

You can fulfill your desire to know things, church family, by getting to know the person, Jesus.

Are we tempted to lust?

We are curious.

We desire to be wanted, to see secret things, but those things will never satisfy.

And Jesus, is he not the most beautiful thing in all creation?

He wants you more than anyone else.

And he can fulfill your desire for curiosity and your desire for intimacy.

He knows all the bad parts of you.

And he still chose you.

He loves you, church family.

Why do we go to anybody except him?

Let him fulfill your desire to be seen and to be known.

Let him fulfill your desire to see beautiful things.

Ga upon the stars and in the trees.

Gaze upon him and the blood that runs off his cross.

He is the most beautiful thing in all creation.

Let him fulfill your desire to see those things.

Are you tempted for more power?

To climb the ladder, to have more control, to do more, to be more.

But it will never satisfy.

But Jesus, he can provide you with the Holy Spirit.

And you can receive supernatural power to do the work of God, to see the fruit of God in your life.

And you'll be satisfied in power when you give up your power to see the power of God working in your life.

Are you drawn to endless entertainment and amusement?

From screens to books to games to a fast-paced living, many of us amuse and distract ourselves into oblivion, leaving no time for the soul satisfying food that comes from sitting in the presence of God.

Whether it's gods of money, unforgiveness, possessions, anger, or any of the things I've already listed.

In the same way Yahweh shows He's supreme over the Egyptian gods, Jesus is supreme over your sinful desires and your little G gods.

And so what do we do?

And Acts 19, we see an example of when the uh citizens of Ephesus they witnessed the power of God through the workings of Paul, and it says that they threw away their old gods.

Let's read that Acts 19, verse 17, and fear fell upon them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was extolled.

Acts 19:17

And many of those who were now believers came, confessing and divulging their practices.

And a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all.

Look at those drastic measures that the citizens of Ephesus took when they realized the Lord was supreme over everyone and everything.

They took their idols in their life and they placed them in a bonfire and watched them burn.

Throw away your old gods.

Burn them.

Get rid of them.

Don't compromise.

If something in your life keeps you in a cycle or a pattern of sin, it is better to get rid of it.

Jesus says it's better to cut off a hand or pluck out an eye than to spend eternity in the fires of hell.

When Sophie and I finally left our flea-infested apartment, we had to get rid of a lot of things in that apartment that likely carried flea eggs.

But there was one piece that we really did not want to get rid of.

It was a beautiful little rug.

And so we cleaned it many, many times over, trying to get rid of every flea and every egg.

And believing that we did, we actually took this rug and we moved into our new house.

We took this rug with us as I was bringing it in from the garage into the house.

And it's like vivid in my head.

I remember carrying it on my shoulder.

I remember seeing one little flea hop on that rug.

And I'm like, well, that's it.

Into the garbage.

Not worth it again.

We were already pushing our luck to take it with us to begin with.

Church family.

We can move houses, have major life changes, we can say yes to Jesus.

We can get baptized.

We can start reading our Bibles.

We can pray lots.

But even then, some of us still try to take old ways of living with us.

We cannot take idols with us when we follow Jesus.

We cannot bring things that lead to sin.

Throw it away.

And thou and confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Philippians chapter 2, verses 8 through 11.

Philippians 2:8–11

And being found in human form, he Jesus humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above all names.

So that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, supreme over it all, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

The day of the Lord is coming where Jesus will return with tribulation and plagues upon the earth, Revelation teaches us.

And for those who throw away their old gods and bow and confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, in that day Jesus will deliver them from the wrath of God and they will live with him for eternity.

So remember from the beginning, this is a matter of eternity here, knowing the one true God.

But those in that day who, like Pharaoh, whether by words or by deeds, say, I don't know the Lord, Jesus will say, I don't know you either.

And so today is the day of salvation.

If you believe up to this point in your life, you have only known the Lord in part or not at all, I invite you to come up and be saved by the name above all names this morning.

Our ministers would love to speak with you.

He is supreme over everyone and everything.

He is Jesus in the flesh, our great deliverer.

So throw away your old gods and bow and confess that he is Lord.

Church family, the altar is also open for you to speak to the Lord in any way that you need.

Let's pray together.

Heavenly Father.

Jesus, we thank you so much.

For not only how the Lord has revealed Himself through the plagues and the Old Testament, how He has shown He is supreme over everything in our life, over every God, over every season, over every win, over every loss, He's supreme over it all, so we can take hope.

We can take hope in this.

But God, we also thank you for the revelation of Jesus Christ and knowing that you have also sent Jesus to show us the extent of which you will go for the love that you have for us.

And so, Heavenly Father, help us to throw away our old gods and bow and confess to you the one and only true God.

Jesus, we pray this in your name.

Amen.

Thanks for listening to the Spring Valley Baptist Church podcast.

Spring Valley Baptist Church is a growing, multi-generational, multicultural church located at 91 Polo Road in Northeast Columbia, South Carolina.

And led by Pastor Blake Jenkins.

We'd love for you to join us each Sunday morning for our worship service at 9.30 a.m.

and our life groups at 11 a.m.

If you want to learn more about our church, visit springvalleybaptist.com.

If you want to know more about what it means to be a disciple of Jesus, email us at communications at springvalleybaptist.com.

Thanks for listening.