November 18, 2004

Reading through the Bible in one Year: Acts 17-18

Weekly Memory Verse: 1 John 5:11-12

Good Evening Brothers and Sisters,

Exodus 8:1-15 (NASB95)
¹ Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go 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 smite your whole territory with frogs. ³ “The Nile will swarm with frogs, which will come up and go into your house and into your bedroom and on your bed, and into the houses of your servants and on your people, and into your ovens and into your kneading bowls. ⁴ “So the frogs will come up on you and your people and all your servants.” ’ ” ⁵ Then the Lord said to Moses, “Say to Aaron, ‘Stretch out your hand with your staff over the rivers, over the streams 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 The magicians did the same with their secret arts, making frogs come up on the land of Egypt. ⁸ Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron and said, “Entreat the Lord that He remove the frogs from me and from my people; and I will let the people go, that they may sacrifice to the Lord.” ⁹ Moses said to Pharaoh, “The honor is yours to tell me: when shall I entreat for you and your servants and your people, that the frogs be destroyed from you and your houses, that they may be left only in the Nile?” ¹⁰ Then he said, “Tomorrow.” So he said, “May it be according to your word, that you may know that there is no one like the Lord our God. ¹¹ “The frogs will depart from you and your houses and your servants and your people; they will be left only in the Nile.” ¹² Then Moses and Aaron went out from Pharaoh, and Moses cried to the Lord concerning the frogs which He had inflicted upon Pharaoh. ¹³ The Lord did according to the word of Moses, and the frogs died out of the houses, the courts, and the fields. ¹⁴ So they piled them in heaps, and the land became foul. ¹⁵ But when Pharaoh saw that there was relief, he hardened his heart and did not listen to them, as the Lord had said.^[1]

The Lord continued to show Pharaoh how powerful that He was.  In order to understand the frogs, you have to understand what they symbolized and think about the natural consequences of the plague of blood.  If the Nile had become foul, the frogs would seek to live elsewhere.  In that case they would naturally gravitate inland.  However, there were probably not enough frogs in the Nile to cause the trouble that was taking place.

Frogs were considered to be sacred by the Egyptians, they were thought to have divine power.  The Egyptian goddess "Heqet" had a frogs head and was believed to breathe life from her nostrils.  It was also believed that her husband "Khnum" was able to create things out of the dust which she would animate.  Since these frogs were considered to be gods, they were not killed.  They literally overran the land, invading peoples houses and bedrooms in the process.  One of the functions of the frog god was to help women in childbirth.  (The Bible Knowledge Commentary).  Consider the amusement of the situation, these precious frogs became a menace, getting into everything, even the food supplies and ovens. 

Think about the imagery for a moment, it mocked God.  Only God is able to have divine power, to breathe life into man and to animate things made from dust, (Adam).  God is the only giver of life.  By messing with the frogs, God made a clear statement to the Egyptians that the frogs were nothing but frogs.  Notice in verse 11 Moses indicated that the frogs would depart, God killed them.  This is important because the death of the frogs indicates that God could kill the frogs and they were not powerful enough to cause Him trouble.  He is the only God, and He is the all powerful God.

Let's take it a step further, consider the people today who consider animals and bugs to be more important than they are.  People don't come out and say that the frogs give you life, but the critters get more credit than they deserve.  As a matter of fact, animals and critters are treated better than God by many Americans.  At least people are concerned about the existence and welfare of animals, they could care less about God.  Considering that approach, animals have replaced God, therefore they have become false gods again.  Things go full circle again.

The magicians continue to amuse the story.  They were successful in conjuring up frogs, why not add a few more of the critters to the misery?  Even though they were successful in conjuring up the frogs, they certainly could not get rid of the frogs.  If you can't be a solution to the problem, why not become a part of the problem?  Pharaoh didn't cry to his magicians to remove the frogs from the land, he cried out to Moses.  All the mockery of God did not mean much when things became miserable with the frogs did it? 

If Pharaoh did not believe that the frogs were from God, then why did he humiliate himself in asking for their removal?  Notice the specific language that Moses used in verse 9, he nailed Pharaoh down, and nailed down the fact that Pharaoh wished that the frogs were destroyed.  In other words Moses made a point of the fact that Pharaoh declared the frogs were not gods and needed to be destroyed.  Another interesting thing is that Pharaoh set the time for the removal of the frogs in verse 10.  Could it be that Pharaoh was trying to buy one more day to figure out a solution so that he would not have to give the Hebrew God credit for removal of the frogs?  How come Pharaoh did not request the frogs to be removed instantly?

God complied with his request for the removal of the frogs and killed them.  This created more problems since they had to be heaped up.  There were so many of them that the Egyptians did not attempt to remove the heaps of dead frogs.  The second plague ended with the Egyptians being more miserable than ever.  Pharaoh stubbornly refused to submit to the will of God, and the story will continue tomorrow.

I am going to close here, if you wish to make further comments on the frogs, please feel free to write in.  I marked up for work today, and hope to return to a regular schedule.  Shelley is still recovering, and had her bandage removed today.  She visited Brian, the 24 year old who has a similar type of tumor.  The difference was that Brian's was twice the size of Shelley's.  We are told tat he is doing well, although he is spending an extended stay in the intensive care unit. 

Father, as we consider Your word today, enlighten each one of us.  Give us the wisdom to acknowledge that You are God in every area of our lives.

In Him,

Joe Turner.

November 19, 2004

Reading through the Bible in one Year: Deuteronomy 16-19

Weekly Memory Verse: 1 John 5:11-12

Good Evening Brothers and Sisters,

Romans 8:16-19 (NASB95)
¹⁶ The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, ¹⁷ and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him. ¹⁸ For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. ¹⁹ For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. ^[1]

The third plague is the plague of lice.  It is interesting that the word for lice is rather ambiguous.  It can also be translated as mosquito’s or as gnats as the NASB translates it.  Regardless how it is translated, all three of these insects can make your life extremely miserable. 

Another thought on this, we have a time frame for the first plague, seven days, the second third and fourth don't have a time frame.  I wonder how long these plagues lasted. Also, there was no warning given for this plague.  God told Aaron to strike the dust, and he did so immediately, there wasn't any warning given or any ceremony. 

I didn't find an Egyptian god associated with the lice, one note was interesting on this, the Egyptians could not worship their gods if they were unclean.  Therefore if they were covered with lice, their bodies were unclean, considered to be defiled and unable to worship. 

A final thought on this, the magicians had met their match.  They tried to bring forth lice, and failed, finally having to admit that the judgment was from a divine being much larger than themselves.  In admitting that, they also agreed that there was no god in Egypt that was more powerful than the God that brought the plague.  The word that they actually used for God was "Elohim" which indicated the supreme God that was over all, this had to be hard to admit to.  It was not the word "YHWH", but a generic form of god meaning that they understood that a powerful God had brought on the plague. They admitted defeat, but not surrender to the Hebrew God. Pharaoh would not listen to them, he hardened his heart to the news. 

Exodus 8:20-32 (NASB95)
²⁰ Now the Lord said to Moses, “Rise early in the morning and present yourself before Pharaoh, as he comes out to the water, and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord, “Let My people go, that they may serve Me. ²¹ “For if you do not let My people go, behold, I will send swarms of insects on you and on your servants and on your people and into your houses; and the houses of the Egyptians will be full of swarms of insects, and also the ground on which they dwell. ²² “But on that day I will set apart the land of Goshen, where My people are living, so that no swarms of insects will be there, in order that you may know that I, the Lord, am in the midst of the land. ²³ “I will put a division between My people and your people. Tomorrow this sign will occur.” ’ ” ²⁴ Then the Lord did so. And there came great swarms of insects into the house of Pharaoh and the houses of his servants and the land was laid waste because of the swarms of insects in all the land of Egypt. ²⁵ Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron and said, “Go, sacrifice to your God within the land.” ²⁶ But Moses said, “It is not right to do so, for we will sacrifice to the Lord our God what is an abomination to the Egyptians. If we sacrifice what is an abomination to the Egyptians before their eyes, will they not then stone us? ²⁷ “We must go a three days’ journey into the wilderness and sacrifice to the Lord our God as He commands us.” ²⁸ Pharaoh said, “I will let you go, that you may sacrifice to the Lord your God in the wilderness; only you shall not go very far away. Make supplication for me.” ²⁹ Then Moses said, “Behold, I am going out from you, and I shall make supplication to the Lord that the swarms of insects may depart from Pharaoh, from his servants, and from his people tomorrow; only do not let Pharaoh deal deceitfully again in not letting the people go to sacrifice to the Lord.” ³⁰ So Moses went out from Pharaoh and made supplication to the Lord. ³¹ The Lord did as Moses asked, and removed the swarms of insects from Pharaoh, from his servants and from his people; not one remained. ³² But Pharaoh hardened his heart this time also, and he did not let the people go.^[2]

The fourth plague is similar to the third, the difference is that a warning was given.  Another difference is that the lice did not go away before the insects came on the land.  King James translates this plague as the flies, NASB translates it as insects, Word Biblical Commentary calls them "flying insects", at any rate a new bug came to town.  It was destructive to plants and property, so whatever the insects were, they reeked havoc on the land. 

There was two Egyptian gods that were based upon the fly, the god "Re" and "Uatchit".  This plague could have been to demonstrate how that they also lacked power.

One other observation on these verses is that Pharaoh may not have been willing to release the Jews, but he was reaching a point where he could compromise with the Hebrews.  It's a matter of his bartering with God over the conditions of the Hebrews release.  The problem was that if the Hebrews sacrificed animals in the land, the egyptians worshipped the same animals as gods.  This would have resulted in rioting in the land.  Moses stuck to his conditions and added one more, that Pharaoh would not change his mind. 

God completely removed the swarms of insects because Moses prayed to Him, and Pharaoh backed out on his word, hardening his heart.  We shake our heads in amazement at Pharaoh, and fail to look in the mirror.  I wonder how many times we have faced trouble in our lives and turned to God for help.  Then once the crisis is over, we forget what we promised, stop going to church and return to our former habits.  We may not be as blatant as Pharaoh was, publicly declaring our intentions, but secretly we are just as bad.  A lie is a lie, if we don't keep our word with God, is there any difference between us and Pharaoh?  Most Christians will serve God faithfully when the chips are down, and we are walking through the dark times in our lives, but what happens when we are prosperous and things are going good?  Do we walk away?  Pharaoh cried out to God for relief when he was overwhelmed with bugs, once things were good again, he forgot what he said.  As we dig through these chapters, keep in mind that man has not changed at all over the centuries.  We just change the nomenclature.

Father, as we consider Your word today, build into each one of us the staying power to continue to walk when things are bad and when things are good.

In Him,

Joe Turner.