Let’s Get Ready to Rumble
October 17, 2021
Preached by Benjamin Vrbicek
*There is no sermon audio or video from this service. We apologize for the inconvenience!
Scripture Reading
Exodus 7:1-8:32
7:1 And the Lord said to Moses, “See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron shall be your prophet. 2 You shall speak all that I command you, and your brother Aaron shall tell Pharaoh to let the people of Israel go out of his land. 3 But I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, 4 Pharaoh will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and bring my hosts, my people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great acts of judgment. 5 The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from among them.” 6 Moses and Aaron did so; they did just as the Lord commanded them. 7 Now Moses was eighty years old, and Aaron eighty-three years old, when they spoke to Pharaoh.
8 Then the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, 9 “When Pharaoh says to you, ‘Prove yourselves by working a miracle,’ then you shall say to Aaron, ‘Take your staff and cast it down before Pharaoh, that it may become a serpent.’”10 So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just as the Lordcommanded. Aaron cast down his staff before Pharaoh and his servants, and it became a serpent. 11 Then Pharaoh summoned the wise men and the sorcerers, and they, the magicians of Egypt, also did the same by their secret arts. 12 For each man cast down his staff, and they became serpents. But Aaron's staff swallowed up their staffs. 13 Still Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and he would not listen to them, as the Lord had said.
14 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Pharaoh's heart is hardened; he refuses to let the people go. 15 Go to Pharaoh in the morning, as he is going out to the water. Stand on the bank of the Nile to meet him, and take in your hand the staff that turned into a serpent. 16 And you shall say to him, ‘The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, sent me to you, saying, “Let my people go, that they may serve me in the wilderness.” But so far, you have not obeyed. 17 Thus says the Lord, “By this you shall know that I am the Lord: behold, with the staff that is in my hand I will strike the water that is in the Nile, and it shall turn into blood. 18 The fish in the Nile shall die, and the Nile will stink, and the Egyptians will grow weary of drinking water from the Nile.”’” 19 And the Lord said to Moses, “Say to Aaron, ‘Take your staff and stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt, over their rivers, their canals, and their ponds, and all their pools of water, so that they may become blood, and there shall be blood throughout all the land of Egypt, even in vessels of wood and in vessels of stone.’”
20 Moses and Aaron did as the Lord commanded. In the sight of Pharaoh and in the sight of his servants he lifted up the staff and struck the water in the Nile, and all the water in the Nile turned into blood. 21 And the fish in the Nile died, and the Nile stank, so that the Egyptians could not drink water from the Nile. There was blood throughout all the land of Egypt. 22 But the magicians of Egypt did the same by their secret arts. So Pharaoh's heart remained hardened, and he would not listen to them, as the Lord had said.23 Pharaoh turned and went into his house, and he did not take even this to heart. 24 And all the Egyptians dug along the Nile for water to drink, for they could not drink the water of the Nile.
25 Seven full days passed after the Lord had struck the Nile.
8:1 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord, “Let my people go, that they may serve me. 2 But if you refuse to let them go, behold, I will plague all your country with frogs. 3 The Nile shall swarm with frogs that shall come up into your house and into your bedroom and on your bed and into the houses of your servants and your people, and into your ovens and your kneading bowls. 4 The frogs shall come up on you and on your people and on all your servants.”’” 5 And the Lord said to Moses, “Say to Aaron, ‘Stretch out your hand with your staff over the rivers, over the canals and over the pools, and make frogs come up on the land of Egypt!’” 6 So Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt, and the frogs came up and covered the land of Egypt. 7 But the magicians did the same by their secret arts and made frogs come up on the land of Egypt.
8 Then Pharaoh called Moses and Aaron and said, “Plead with the Lord to take away the frogs from me and from my people, and I will let the people go to sacrifice to the Lord.” 9 Moses said to Pharaoh, “Be pleased to command me when I am to plead for you and for your servants and for your people, that the frogs be cut off from you and your houses and be left only in the Nile.” 10 And he said, “Tomorrow.” Moses said, “Be it as you say, so that you may know that there is no one like the Lord our God. 11 The frogs shall go away from you and your houses and your servants and your people. They shall be left only in the Nile.” 12 So Moses and Aaron went out from Pharaoh, and Moses cried to the Lord about the frogs, as he had agreed with Pharaoh. 13 And the Lord did according to the word of Moses. The frogs died out in the houses, the courtyards, and the fields. 14 And they gathered them together in heaps, and the land stank. 15 But when Pharaoh saw that there was a respite, he hardened his heart and would not listen to them, as the Lord had said.
16 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.’” 17 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. 18 The magicians tried by their secret arts to produce gnats, but they could not. So there were gnats on man and beast. 19 Then the magicians 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.
20 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Rise up early in the morning and present yourself to Pharaoh, as he goes out to the water, and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord, “Let my people go, that they may serve me. 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. 22 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. 23 Thus I will put a division between my people and your people. Tomorrow this sign shall happen.”’”24 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.
25 Then Pharaoh called Moses and Aaron and said, “Go, sacrifice to your God within the land.” 26 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? 27 We must go three days' journey into the wilderness and sacrifice to the Lord our God as he tells us.” 28 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.” 29 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.” 30 So Moses went out from Pharaoh and prayed to the Lord. 31 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. 32 But Pharaoh hardened his heart this time also, and did not let the people go.
See if you can finish this line: “Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the main event. Let’s get ready…” to what—what comes next? To rumble. That’s right. When we come to Exodus 7, we’ve come to the main event, or at least the start of the main event, namely, a battle between the (g/G)ods to the death. And there will be only one winner. Let’s pray, asking God to prepare us to study this passage.
“Dear heavenly Father . . .”
Introduction
There’s a conversation from one particular pastor-elder meeting that will live on infamy in my memory, and I wasn’t even a part of the conversation. I only overheard the conversation. Just before everything closed due to Covid-19, our church had one of our regular pastor-elder meetings (the pastor-elders are the staff and volunteer pastors of the church), and at the meeting I overheard one volunteer pastor say to another, “So, I’m reading about this coronavirus thing. I don’t think it’s just going to go away.” The other responded, “Yeah, you might be right. Looks like a pretty big deal in China. Let’s toss it on the agenda for the next meeting.” The next scheduled elders meeting was two weeks away. Like most churches, we didn’t get to wait. Little did we know that we would have to call an emergency meeting on a Saturday morning and then cancel in-person church for the next day.
We’ve been preaching through the Old Testament book of Exodus, and I imagine that in the royal palace of Pharoah some leader saw something in Moses and Aaron in that first time they met Pharoah and that first time they demanded Pharoah let God’s people go—and they saw the way that Pharoah refused and instead required that they then make bricks without the provision of straw—I imagine one royal advisor looked at another advisor, or one royal magician looked at another magician, and said something like, “I’m thinking this YWHW thing isn’t just going to go away.” And the other magician responded, “Yeah, you might be right. Looks like a pretty big deal among the Israelites. Let’s toss it on the agenda for the next meeting.” I suspect, little did they know, they would not get to wait until the next meeting, calling instead an emergency meeting because, as the one official might have said to the other, this YWHW isn’t going away. The Lord is here for his people. The Lord is entering into a hostage negotiation with the most powerful man of the most powerful nation on earth so that, when only one of the two supposed God’s walks away from the battle with his head held high, the whole world will know that there is no God but the Lord. The Lord has no rivals. This is a problem for Pharoah. When Moses first meets Pharoah and, speaking for God, tells him “Let my people go,” do you remember what Pharoah said? I’ll read Exodus 5:2.
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.”
Pharoah says he doesn’t know the Lord. But it’s not as though he doesn’t know something about gods and worship and the serving of gods. He knew a lot about serving gods. That’s always the case. When we don’t know the real God, we’ll serve something we think is god. And God means to free us from our delusions. God means to free us from slavery to idols, so that we can serve him.
Round 0 – Snakes
This morning, I’m going to read a massive amount of Scripture. That will be true next week as well. And I’ll only make passing comments here and there. I don’t say that as an apology for reading lots of Scripture but more of as a heads up. The story of Exodus, particularly these chapters, demand our attention. And they are so rich, I believe all we need this morning is a few comments here and there to give the sense of how terrifying and wonderful is our Lord.
We just heard the beginning of chapter 7 read. In that passage, Moses and Aaron approach Pharoah who has drawn a line in the sand with this foot and said, “I dare you to cross it.” What follows is the main event, the main battle, the rumble, the boxing match or fight between the gods of Egypt and the God of Gods. Exodus 7:5 says,
The Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from among them.
We often think of the ten plagues as both strange and arbitrary. They are neither. Each is a pointed attack against the supposed divinity of a god in Egypt. The Lord is going ten rounds in the ring. But first there is what we might consider the promotional stunt, the weigh-in and press conference where each contestant gets on the scale and flexes. A fighter doesn’t necessarily win or lose the match at the press conference, but often one opponent starts to get more in the head of the other opponent. Look at vv. 9–13.
7:9 “When Pharaoh says to you, ‘Prove yourselves by working a miracle,’ then you shall say to Aaron, ‘Take your staff and cast it down before Pharaoh, that it may become a serpent.’” 7:10 So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just as the LORD commanded. Aaron cast down his staff before Pharaoh and his servants, and it became a serpent. 7:11 Then Pharaoh summoned the wise men and the sorcerers, and they, the magicians of Egypt, also did the same by their secret arts.7:12 For each man cast down his staff, and they became serpents. But Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs. 7:13 Still Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he would not listen to them, as the LORD had said.
It’s been pointed out by many that the serpent, even the cobra specifically, was part of the symbol of Egyptian divinity. Pharoah himself would have worn serpent-encrusted diadem, a cobra crown (see Ryken, Exodus, 184). Thus, the symbolism of Moses and Aaron and the dominance of their staffs would not have been lost on Pharoah, the palace press secretary and members of the press corps. How would we put this event in our language that we might understand it better? Listen to how one pastor put it:
[The significance of the symbol of the serpent] helps explain what Aaron was doing when he “cast down his staff before Pharoah” (7:10). He was taking the symbol of the king’s majesty and making it crawl in the dust. This was a direct assault on Pharoah’s sovereignty; indeed, it was an attack on Egypt’s entire belief system. To draw a modern comparison, it would be like taking a bald eagle into the Oval Office and wringing its neck. When God confronts other gods he does not probe around, hoping to find a weakness. Instead he takes aim at his enemies’ greatest strength and overwhelms it with superior force. In this case, he sent Moses and Aaron straight to Pharoah’s command center, where he proceeded to claim ultimate authority over all Egypt. (Ryken, Exodus, 185).
The magicians now have no staffs because Aaron’s bald eagle ate them. I don’t know much about wizards, but wizards seem to need their staffs. I’ll leave any other comments about the magicians and their attempts to copy-cat until later. For now simply notice that the ten rounds of plagues haven’t even begun yet—here is only the weigh-in or Round Zero—but already the Lord is in the head of Pharoah.
Round One – Blood
Now the fight begins for real: Round One and the plague of blood. Look 7:15–17.
7:15 Go to Pharaoh in the morning, as he is going out to the water. Stand on the bank of the Nile to meet him, and take in your hand the staff that turned into a serpent. 7:16 And you shall say to him, ‘The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, sent me to you, saying, “Let my people go, that they may serve me in the wilderness. But so far, you have not obeyed.” 7:17 Thus says the LORD, “By this you shall know that I am the LORD: behold, with the staff that is in my hand I will strike the water that is in the Nile, and it shall turn into blood.”’
The Lord attacks the Nile to show that the Nile is not God, nor are the supposed gods who oversee the Nile actually gods. It’s as though the Lord says, “You know how back in chapter 1, Pharoah commanded that all Israelite male babies be thrown in the Nile? Well, never again.” And you have to appreciate how devastating this blow is to not only the water supply that the Nile provided and the wellbeing of the people but to the economy as well. It would be like all the oil in Pennsylvania turning to sludge. No trucks would run, no cars, no generators, no nothing. All economic activity would grind to a halt, causing enormous problems for national recovery, a devastation that perhaps would take years to undo. Look what happens after they strike the Nile with their staffs.
7:21 And the fish in the Nile died, and the Nile stank, so that the Egyptians could not drink water from the Nile. There was blood throughout all the land of Egypt. 7:22 But the magicians of Egypt did the same by their secret arts. So Pharaoh’s heart remained hardened, and he would not listen to them, as the LORD had said. 7:23 Pharaoh turned and went into his house, and he did not take even this to heart. 7:24 And all the Egyptians dug along the Nile for water to drink, for they could not drink the water of the Nile. 7:25 Seven full days passed after the LORD had struck the Nile.
A week goes by. And it’s never said explicitly in the text that the work of brick-making by the Israelites ceases, but I think it does cease. How could it not? With this plague, the bell for the first round rings, and each fighter goes to his corner.
Round Two – Frogs
Then the bell rings again, Round Two: Frogs. Look at 8:1–2, 5–7.
8:1 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh and say to him,’ Thus says the LORD, “Let my people go, that they may serve me. 8:2 But if you refuse to let them go, behold, I will plague all your country with frogs. . . .”’” 8:5 And the LORD said to Moses, “Say to Aaron, ‘Stretch out your hand with your staff over the rivers, over the canals and over the pools, and make frogs come up on the land of Egypt!’” 8:6 So Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt, and the frogs came up and covered the land of Egypt. 8:7 But the magicians did the same by their secret arts and made frogs come up on the land of Egypt.
There are so many items I want to mention, but I’ll show great restraint and only mention two. First, the repetition of the word “your” in vv. 3–4, the verses I didn’t read but will read now. Moses says, “The Nile shall swarm with frogs that shall come up into your house and into your bedroom and on your bed and into the houses of your servants and your people, and into your ovens and your kneading bowls. The frogs shall come up on you and on your people and on all your servants” (8:3–4). The athletic clothing company Under Armour had the slogan, “protect this house” and ran commercials with huge, muscular football players lifting weights and chanting about how they will protect. The Lord comes to Pharoah and says you can’t protect your house. Maybe what you consider yours is not yours but mine.
Second comment: the magicians. I believe they perform their miracles by the power of demonic, evil sprits. Regardless of how you think they did what they did, consider—when you really think about what they do—how dumb it is. The Lord is striking Pharoah and Egypt in the gut. You’d think the magicians, if they had any real sense or any substantial power, they’d block the punch and throw their own punches. Instead, all they can do is mimic Moses and punch themselves in the face. Oh, you make frogs. We’ll make more frogs. Sin and evil, when pressed to their extreme, are illogical. Sin is a parasite—not a thing in and of itself, but only the corruption of a good thing.
Let’s keep going. In the next few verses Pharoah pleads with Moses to plead with the Lord to take the frogs away. I won’t read the passage, but Moses essentially says, “Sure, when would you like them to leave.” Pharaoh says, “Tomorrow” (v. 10). This is a theme throughout the plagues, namely, that not only will the plague arrive when God says, but it will leave when he says too, which serves to highlight the God-ness of each plague. These events are no mere acts of nature. They are, as the magicians will say at the end of chapter 8, the very “finger of God” (8:19). Insurance companies sometimes have a line in policies about “acts of God,” which are crazy, unforeseeable cataclysmic events that only can be described as acts of God, like a volcanic eruption in Harrisburg. That’s what these magicians say to Pharoah. And in a note of divine humor, notice when the frogs go away, they don’t just go away. The frogs wake up in the morning and take one last leap, one last croak, whether from the bedroom or from under the covers, from the KitchenAid mixer, from inside the pantry, and then roll over and die and rot and stink.
8:13 And the LORD did according to the word of Moses. The frogs died out in the houses, the courtyards, and the fields. 8:14 And they gathered them together in heaps, and the land stank. 8:15But when Pharaoh saw that there was a respite, he hardened his heart and would not listen to them, as the LORD had said.
One winter I had a big, fat possum crawl under my porch and die. If we had more time I’d tell you story from the 85-degree day that spring when we found the possum because of the stench. It’s a far worse story than you imagine. And so were these dead frogs.
Round Three – Gnats
As the Lord attacked the Nile and the gods associated with the river, he now moves on land for three rounds to strike the supposed Egyptian gods over the land. In Round Three, God sends gnats or lice or some other small biting creature. I’ll read vv. 16–19.
8:16 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.’” 8:17 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. 8:18 The magicians tried by their secret arts to produce gnats, but they could not. So there were gnats on man and beast. 8:19 Then the magicians 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.
The magicians are only mentioned one more time in this story, and that’s next week. God puts them and their dark magic in an armbar, as it were, and they tap out.
Round Four – Flies
Now comes Round Four and the flies, our last plague for today. I won’t read this one, but the flies come, and they come think—but not everywhere. Look at vv. 22–23.
8:22 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. 8:23 Thus I will put a division between my people and your people. Tomorrow this sign shall happen.”’”
As with the rest of the plagues, anyone who wants to get away from the plague, anyone—anyone!—who wants to serve the Lord, can. A distinction is made and will continue to be made. The flies are in the desirable lands; flies coat the streets and houses and people in Derry Township and Linglestown and Camp Hill and Italian Lake, but not in, shall we say, Allison Hill. All you have to do is switch teams. All you have to do is forsake your pride, bow to YWHW, and God will welcome you without reservation.
In v. 24 we read that the narrator says that when the flies came “the land was ruined.” This, again, is a reason I suspect all forward-looking economic endeavors have ceased. No more bricks—with or without straw. And here, the narrator says the line about the land being ruined, but the same comment will be made by Pharoah’s own people in next week’s passage when they plead with Pharoah to end the hostage negotiation (10:7). That’s next week. Here, predicably Pharoah pleads for the flies to leave. And, predictably, they do. Yet Pharoah, at his core, remains unchanged. Look at v. 31–32.
8:31 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. 8:32 But Pharaoh hardened his heart this time also, and did not let the people go.
So complete, so absolute is the sovereignty of the Lord that the text says that not one fly remained. You know how hard it is to chase one fly across a room? Imagine if this room had ten thousand flies? Imagine if Harrisburg had ten quadrillion flies every square mile. And imagine that with the ringing of a bell, not one remained. The round is over with Pharaoh’s heart getting harder, something I hope to talk about next week.
Conclusion
A few weeks ago, as I began my sermon I mentioned that almost fifty years ago a theologian wrote a book called Knowing God. Many Christians, including me, still find it helpful. In the book’s introduction the author describes the predicament of modern Christians in this way: we’re looking at God as through a telescope—but through the wrong end of the telescope, and thus God seems small. And so, this theologian said, we then become small Christians (quoted in Tim Chester, Exodus for You, 27). I mentioned that in the book of Exodus, it’s as though God takes the telescope from our hands, turns it around the right way, and then—to our surprise—he climbs down among us. And it’s both terrifying and wonderful.
Do you see the way that beholding the real God through his Word, beholding God with the telescope pointed the right way as it were, not only makes God as big as he is but how it makes Christians as big as we should be? A big God has big people. Now, I don’t mean the kind of “big” Christians who ooze pride and entitlement. God hates pride and entitlement. Look at how he opposed Pharoah. There’s no room for Christian smugness; God fights and wins these battles, not the Israelites. God’s people have nothing to boast about. Except we do. We can boast in God. Listen to how the prophet Jeremiah put it many years later.
Thus says the LORD: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.” (Jer. 9:23–24)
It’s as though, Jeremiah says, knowing the Lord makes all the difference because it does.
I’ll put it like this as we close. I heard a female author comment once about the typical women’s ministry message and the typical focus. She said that we would be able to spend a lot less time saying that “Christian women are loved daughters of the king” if we talked a lot more about the king himself. If we spent a lot of time talking about the bigness of the king—if we spent most of our Sundays looking through the telescope of God’s Word at God himself—then we might only have to say at the end of a sermon, “Oh, by the way, this God loves you” for it to have force. Her point was that, if we spent most of our time talking about the real God, we might only have to say at the end of a sermon, “Oh, by the way, if you are a Christian, if you have turned from your sins and trusted in Christ and confess that there is no God but the Lord and the way you know him is through Jesus,” then the comment that we are all sons and daughters of this king might land upon us with great force. As I hope it just did. Let’s pray . . .
Family Discussion Questions
Which plague, so far, feels like the worst? Why?
In what particular ways is God reminding you that he is God and you are not?
How does the story of the Exodus reveal the “bigness” of God? How does the gospel story of Jesus reveal the bigness of God? How does the bigness of God in the gospel encourage you?
In what ways should the gospel make Christians “big” and in what ways should the gospel keep us small? In what ways do you struggle with this?
