I invite you to turn in the Scriptures this morning to the second book of the Bible, to the sixth plague, which is chapter 9, as we're continuing our study in the book of Exodus. Exodus chapter 9, verses 8 through 12. I sprung up this morning and I said to my wife, aren't you ready to hear a sermon on boils? And she said, no, I'm not. I didn't try to capture that in your notes either. Exodus chapter 9, beginning at verse 8. Let's give our attention this morning to the word of the Lord. And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, take handfuls of soot from the kiln and let Moses throw them in the air in the sight of Pharaoh. It shall become fine dust over all the land of Egypt and become boils breaking out in sores on man and beast throughout all the land of Egypt. So they took soot from the kiln and stood before Pharaoh. And Moses threw it in the air. And it became boils breaking out in sores on man and beast. And the magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boils. For the boils came upon the magicians and upon all the Egyptians. But the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh. And he did not listen to them as the Lord had spoken to Moses. May the Lord bless this morning, the hearing of his word. It is remarkable to me how many times the scriptures pose the question, who is able to stand, uses that word stand, before the Lord? You'll remember when the ark was taken into Philistine territory in the book of 1 Samuel, and the Lord had plagued the Philistines with tumors of rats, remember, on their bodies. And the ark then came out and it went back to Israel. And remember, the men of Beth Shemesh looked into the ark, which they knew they shouldn't have done, and immediately many of them died. But the great question came out, who is able to stand before the Lord, this holy God? There it was. You'll remember in the book of Revelation at the very end, actually in Revelation 6, that after the series of plagues and after all these things that happened, the question again comes out, the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand? Who is able? I believe that question is what the plague is leading us to this morning. In a sense, we really do in the sixth plague get to the heart of the matter in the book itself. We're seeing all these themes come together and it's progressing in teaching us this as Revelation progresses. We see this this morning, particularly in the sixth plague, who at the very end of this plague, we read that all the wise men, the holy men, the magicians, in verse 11, could not stand before Moses. that wasn't just because of the boils it was because they had no ability to stand anymore before god's holy prophet it was done we're done with the the magicians after this plague they can't come back before moses they don't have the ability to come back before moses and the lord was teaching us something in this about his deliverance for israel that he was ultimately bringing a people and this is what hebrews picks up about the exodus he was bringing a people near to him a people near and israel had to grapple with that question israel had to answer that question how do we have the ability to stand before the lord our god which is what the philistines asked how do we have that ability and this morning as we see this the story of salvation developing and and we see the whole picture being brought to us here the lord teaches us and shows us his love again to make israel for them a way that they can be brought near a way that they can know his shining face, a way that they can know his blessing. But we also see how awful it is to be against the Lord God. We also see how terrible it is to stand against him. For you'll never ultimately be able to stand before his holiness on that day. So this is what we're looking at this morning. As we open up the sixth plague, we come to what seems to be a sort of confusing section, something that's odd, something that's interesting, mysterious to us. If you look at verse 8, it captures it right out of the gates. And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, take handfuls of soot from the kiln and let Moses throw them up in the air in the sight of Pharaoh. It shall be confined dust over all the land of egypt a strange plague what a strange moment you know what it means there's no announcement to this plague which makes it all the more powerful in some ways moses is told after all this announcement after all this saying let them go now moses is told you walk in right before pharaoh and you say nothing you don't say a word can you imagine that here comes moses and aaron with the staff pharaoh looks up uh-oh not a word is said walks up not a word and he reaches down into this kiln and he grabs, the imagery is he grabs with both hands and he scoops up two big gulps, scoops, scoops of black soot and he hurls it up into the air. You know what would happen. It would be a big plume of black smoke that would then happen, ash. I'm imagining that. Right in front of Pharaoh, he sees this, this big cloud of black smoke goes up and it just keeps going and going and going and gets bigger and bigger and bigger. And then all of a sudden, as Pharaoh's looking up into the heavens, it is, the right time we can use this word, transubstantiated to dust. And this cloud of soot then drops back down and really find dust upon all the land of Egypt. find us now before uh we get to the meaning of this uh this morning what happened we really do need to understand why god chose to do this that can be determined why god chose to do this why was god does nothing uh that's just out there for no rhyme or reason god is very intentional we've seen that in these plagues god is aiming at specific things when we think about that we we can put some of this together and realize that pharaoh was out somewhere pharaoh was out somewhere and what we gather here is that pharaoh was out at all the altars of worship in egypt generally on these altars in egypt sacrifices were being made they what they would do in their daily routines is that they would the magicians especially they were priests they would go out to these altars and they would try to appease certain gods. They would try to appease certain gods, and especially the god Typhon, who is known as the evil principle in the earth. So if you put this together, Egypt is really feeling the heavy hand of the Lord. Pharaoh's really experiencing the heavy hand of the Lord upon him, as we looked at last time. And so the Egyptians are now out there with Pharaoh trying to propitiate the evil principle you know what they would do they would take big handful of ashes and they would throw them up in the air as a sign of blessing to their god who's standing there pharaoh all of his cabinet all of his wise men and the magicians and they're performing this We have prayers recorded. We know what they said. Oh, creator God, Noom, I call unto thee, my father, Noom. I'm in the midst of foes. All have joined themselves against me, and I am alone. Moses, I want you to walk out when he's doing that. I don't want you to say a word. This is really powerful imagery. I want you to go down, and I want you to take some soot, And I want you, for him, to cast it up just like he's doing right on up into heaven. Next to these altars, at least within range of sight, were kilns. Kilns. What were kilns used for? Well, we know kilns were used for making bricks. Kilns were everywhere in Egypt. 400 years, God's people had stood before those kilns. Think about it. 400 years, God's people had stood before those kilns. How many people died at those kilns? How many people were whipped and oppressed and beaten at those kilns? Kilns were the symbols of Israel's altar. What do I mean? Imagine all the tears. Imagine all the prayers that went up for 400 years. Imagine all the cries that went up. Imagine all the bodies that were burned at those kilns. To give you some sense of this, I don't think we capture it well. To the older brothers and sisters, they had no retirement in Egypt. How many of the elderly do you think in their 90s were forced to go out there and make bricks? How many do you think died? They didn't have child labor laws. How many children? You just can't help but to think a little bit about something like Auschwitz. That's the thing that came to my mind. That place housed eight gas chambers and 46 ovens that could dispose of 4,400 bodies a day. When I think of Auschwitz, you know what I think of? Ashes. That's exactly what comes into people's minds when they think of Auschwitz. The language of Exodus is extreme. They, and I quote, inflicted them with hard bondage. Here is an ancient text which describes an Egyptian master traveling down to the Nile to look at his slaves and what they were producing, inspecting the slaves. And I quote, Now the scribe lands on the shore. This is the master. He surveys the harvest. Attendants are behind him with staffs, Nubians with clubs. One says to him, give grain, there's none. He is beaten savagely. He is thrown in a well, submerged, head down. His wife is bound in his presence. His children are in fetters, end of quote. The bondage was so great. I don't think we get there unless we sense this and understand this, that even when the Passover was being instituted, when the Passover was being given, they were taught to say something to future generations. They were taught to repeat something to future generations. The Lord told the parents, this is part of your training duty. You continue to say this. And here's what I want you to say. And the Egyptians treated us harshly and humiliated us and laid on us hard labor. Then we cried to the Lord, the God of our fathers, and the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. And the Lord brought us up out of Egypt with a mighty hand. last time and an outstretched arm that's what he did you tell future generations about this you make sure they understand this now Pharaoh stands there crying out to his gods with ashes of sacrifice as this is happening Moses walks up to the kilns which I'm assuming many of God's people's ashes are in there and he casts them up into heaven. 400 years of cries, 400 years of tears, 400 years of persecution. They were the people of Christ. Think of it. Every moan, every cry, every prayer request went up to heaven. Moses gives a visual of that. That's what I believe this is. Moses gives a visual. Moses gives an object lesson of that. And he's here showing us something that those prayers went right up on, those cries went right up on into heaven. You say, well, where do you get that? Revelation 8. Another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer and he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne and the smoke of the incense, black smoke, with the prayers of the saints rose up before God from the hand of the angel. These are the prayers of the saints. Know what happened? Well, this. Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire, and threw it back to the earth. And there were peals of thunder and rumblings, flashes of lightning and an earthquake. What was one of the judgments that came down? It's this. So the first angel went and poured out his bowl on the earth and harmful and painful sores came upon the people who bore the mark of the beast and worshiped its image. It wasn't carrying around a little 666 number. who was being identified with Satan and his kingdom and Pharaoh. This is all borrowed. The language of Revelation is using that garb of the Old Testament to explain something that we can take real comfort in, that this black soot went up, it became a giant cloud in the heavens, and then in Pharaoh's eyes, all of a sudden, it becomes fine dust and it drops back on them, and all of a sudden, painful boils break out on all their bodies. Fire came back down. Boils. To which you should all be thinking, dust? A message in dust? That had everything to do with the curse, didn't it? That the serpent would lick the dust after he had fallen. That to dust you are, and to dust you shall return. And the encouragement initially as we look at this plague is really clear. God doesn't forget one cry of his people. God hears you. This is why he's inviting us to pray to him. You don't have to go to Pope or priest. You can go right there. He'll hear you. And he wanted everyone to know you don't know who you're messing with. It was that kind of encouragement that the Lord gave when he was standing on earth. And he said, listen, men ought to pray always and not lose heart. Why? Well, there was this little widow who kept crying out about all the injustices that she was having in her life. And especially this one particular, she just kept praying and praying and praying. And finally, she kept bothering this unjust judge. Finally, he said, I'm tired of her wearying. I'm just going to answer her to get her off my back. The Lord says, do I ever treat any of you like that? I'm going to avenge my elect speedily. I'm going to throw back fire quickly. That was the encouragement. And it seemed as if for all these years nothing had happened. Nothing was going on. It seemed that God had been silent, that God had not delivered His people, that God had abandoned His people. And here now Pharaoh gets the visual, I didn't abandon them at all. He hears them, he receives your cries, and I say the most practical point, don't stop praying. Don't lose heart. In all of your discouragements and all of the hardships and the seeming defeat, he is calculating, he'll measure it back. He'll give it back. Now God has calculated it all, demanding a reckoning, and here comes the recompense. We read that this dust fell on their bodies and it became boils. I don't know if in Western society we're as accustomed to this because of our medicine. I was, again, been so fascinated, strangely enough, with the Black Death of the 14th century. And the Black Death eventually was given the name, it was adopted with that name because of what happened on people's bodies were these black boil-like plague, boils. They were black boils that showed up on people's bodies. They called them strange swellings, which were followed by fevers and chills and vomiting and diarrhea, terrible aches and pains, and then in short order, death. The black death was an awful thing that happened. Indiscriminately, they called it contagious. Bocasio said, the mere touching of the clothes appeared to itself to communicate the malady to the toucher. The disease, he said, was terrifyingly efficient. People who were perfectly healthy one night would go to bed and in the morning they'd be dead. Read it. It wiped out a third of Europe's population. In Egypt, the common suggestion, and this is why the sermon is tough, I understand. Who wants to hear about this? I don't want to hear about this. But it's reality. The problem in Egypt, they say, was known as a kind of skin anthrax. One described the plague that in history, in whatever form the plague took, as it became known as the plague, it takes the form first of a big swelling on the affected part of the skin. After two or three days, there appears to be a small bluish-red pustule with a central depression in the middle of the swelling. This depression dries up and new boils shoot up. The first plagues were just annoying, weren't they? Frogs. Denial. Have you noticed this is getting a lot more personal? What was the Lord confronting? Well, the Egyptians were obsessed with medicine. The Egyptians were obsessed with healing. Closely connected with their medicine was their religion. You can see this in most ancient countries and peoples, that they tied these things together. They would pray endlessly to their gods for healings from all the diseases and the sicknesses. So you had about four major gods in Egypt that they would cry out to. Amun-Ra, which you've probably heard of. They have uncovered a tablet that showed and depicted him as a healer. A physician who heals the eye, they said, and dispels ailments, a physician who heals the eye without having remedies, opening the eyes and driving away the squint, rescuing whom he desires. He makes a lifetime long or shortens it. Amen-Ra. Prayers to Amen-Ra were made. Emotep was known as the god of medicine. And it was probably the one here the Lord is directly assaulting was known as Sekhmet. He was a lion-headed, was a lion-headed, she was a lion-headed goddess who was worshipped for having the power to create epidemics and bring them to an end. In fact, there was a whole priesthood devoted to Sekhmet, which is probably who they were casting the ashes to. To ward off all the evil in people's lives. So many advances had been made in medicine. so many technological advances in Egypt, we still are amazed at what they could build. The medicines were really, really spectacular and remarkable for the time. They had a whole cult of worship for these gods and they gave glory to these gods for healing in their lives. I'm so thankful for kind providence that the Lord gives us that. Healing and medicines. We live in a day untouched in the history of the world with this stuff. I get sick. I can go to the doctor. I really do. I think most people here expect to be healed. We expect that. I've noticed in my time as a pastor that the prayer requests have grown so much about any aches or pains that people have. And we should. I'm not challenging that, but I've shown that it's become so expected that we will get healed from these things. It's so normal to us. We can't imagine differently. We really can't. Today we have lasers and we have scanners and we have the techniques for surgeries and we have everything. What they're predicting we're able to do in the future. New knees, new hips, new this, knew that. We never would dream that we would have these things today. And we say that all the time. Boy, it's just remarkable what those doctors can do today. I hear it universally. Just remarkable what those doctors can do today. Years ago, when disease struck, I'm thinking of all these pastor's biographies that I've read over the years where I've read of one pastor that lost 12 out of his 13 children? I can't even imagine that. I haven't known that. Years ago, polio and smallpox wiped out vast portions of population, just like us. Most of the diseases 100 years ago, they've been wiped out today, most of them. Most of us today, when we get sick, we think we'll go to the doctor and we'll get well. What happens in that environment? Do you see what God's assaulting? The Egyptians had harmed His people. And what is the Lord declaring? I hold your lives. You don't hold your lives. You realize He holds every single life, every single heartbeat in His hand. I was just reading of a girl this last week swimming in a pool and the heart just stopped. 16 years old. He determines the boundaries of where you live. He determines how long you're going to be here. You don't hold your life. Boils cover their bodies. What did it do? Here's what it did. It confronted them with their own mortality. Something Egyptians refused to accept. Look at their burials. You have to understand what just happened to them in Egypt boils all over bodies. They would have never dreamed could happen in Egypt. What was the Lord confronting with this plague? They don't have control over their bodies or health. They're dust. To dust you all return. From dust you were made to dust you shall return. What a powerful message. Because we really don't live thinking that something like this could happen. Foils. I have a pastor friend who had a real health scare last month in his family. And his wife was very concerned about something that was going on. And he tells me, he says, we are so relieved in our family. We went to the doctor, everything's great, but we thought this was serious stuff. And then he looked at me and he said, Chris? One day, that report won't be good for any of us. I hate hearing that. I absolutely hate hearing that. One day, it won't be good. Probably the greatest testing of faith comes by way of our health. When health is attacked, you're confronted head-on with what you believe, how you will move forward, facing the reality of it, and ultimately where you're going to put your trust. A lot in this church have been tested with that. A lot in this church are being tested with it right now. Sickness and weakness has a way of confronting us with our own mortality. It's as one pastor says, you know, we have to emphasize, we are all dying. And until we're confronted with that reality in our own body, we go on in our own strength. The glory and pride, the Proverbs say, of a young man is his strength. but when sickness comes people are confronted with real questions about life and forced to think about greater things the plague was utterly humiliating to the egyptians and that was the design what do things like that do well they drive us to think seriously about a larger question about what God has said from the beginning that the wages of sin is death. Daniel Defoe, in his Journal of the Plague Year, the plague that wiped out London in 1665, cautioned about reading Providence and never asking, you know, not being sure about everyone was running around London saying this is God's judgment for this sin and these sort of things. He says we can't say that. Defoe was really really careful in looking at these things and talked about causes and all that. But he made a fascinating observation in the book. He said at that time when the plague hit the government called for a return to the Lord. They appointed public prayers and days of fastings and humiliations to make public confession of sin and implore the mercy of god the very dreadful judgment he records that people flock to the churches the churches were absolutely packed out he was distressed in the book which made me so sad to read that the ministers railed against them that their sins caused this and they didn't give them any hope or gospel and he said they should have been preaching forgiveness you know. What do you think happened in Egypt? After all these plagues by now, what do you think happened in Egypt? What do you think is starting to happen in Egypt? Not one boil has hit God's people. Not one. Well, don't you think many would start looking over to the borders of Goshen? I would think. You know what happens in chapter 12 when Israel leaves? We read a fascinating statement that a mixed multitude went up with them also. Those were Egyptians. God was saving Egyptians. They came to Christ, many of them. This is why the Lord was so concerned about the stranger in your gates, right? What question did all of this make the Egyptians ask? This is where I'm going with all this this morning. What question did this stuff make the Egyptians ask? Why are these people standing and we're not? Might they have looked at what the New Testament teaches us about joy and affliction? What the Lord teaches us about a witness in our bodies in the midst of hardships, about how we can show forth the sufferings of Christ amazingly enough? There are a lot of questions unbelievers ask at times like this. The plague was intended to do this for all of Egypt and it leads to the great question this morning in verse 11. The great question this morning that we're led to in verse 11 is this. And the magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boils. For the boils came upon the magicians and upon all the Egyptians, they could no longer stand before God's holy prophet. Did Israel have to think a lot about how they were able to stand? Yes. Something so fascinating in Israel's history comes out in Deuteronomy 28 when this same threat of boils is made against God's people. The Lord will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, festering sores in the itch from which you cannot be cured. The Lord will afflict your knees and your legs with painful boils that cannot be cured, spreading from the soles of your feet to the top of your head. What? Why would you do that to your people? you know what it says these curses will come upon you if you don't keep the law the same thing that happened to the egyptians will happen to you you don't keep the law to whichever israelite should have made the connection if this can happen to us then that means we're no better than the egyptians god always reminded israel it was never because of your righteousness it was never because of your righteousness that i'm doing this it was because of the righteousness of another, Romans 10, that they wouldn't submit to. Keep the law. Israel had to grapple with that. Why is God showing us favor when we don't deserve it? If you don't keep the law, you get the boils to which Israel should have been taught and learned to say we don't keep the law and it was the same question then that came out in israel's history from the men of bet shemesh who can stand before the lord this holy god this was his prophet egypt couldn't stand before the prophet how can we stand if we can't stand before the prophet how can we stand before the lord our holy god and his prophet the lord jesus christ well the scriptures has told you over and over you gotta have clean hands and a pure heart which we don't have and then we transition this morning to what the entire life of christ teaches us how much attention did the lord jesus christ devote to people's sickness how much attention did the lord jesus christ devote to people's sickness oh he cared A woman with a flow of blood. A man paralyzed. A man blind from birth. Leprosy everywhere. Jesus comes and he starts laying his hands on them and healing them. These needy, unclean people. And that was the message. All of them in the society were unclean. The blind man taught us about spiritual blindness. The leper about the uncleanness of our lives to come before the priest. The woman with the flow of blood about a constant uncleanliness. A paralyzed man about the spiritual inability to come to Goshen. Wherever he went, into villages and cities or the country, he laid his hands on the sick in the marketplaces. And they begged him that they just might touch the hem of his garment. and as many as touched him were made well. What does Christ's ministry show you? A great physician. He told us the ultimate goal of doing all that. I came for the sick. I didn't come for the healthy. To which all of that told us that the deeper issue, that all that symptomatically told us of was the problem of our spiritual condition before god i came for sinners i came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance those who know they're sick and need a physician and i'm going to be the great physician to go to them physical sickness is a symptom of the greater problem that death reigns in your bodies and that's because of the problem of sin which bars everyone from God. And the Lord came to do what? Set you free. To give His life so that you one day, think about the glory of this, dear Christians, you might be able to stand before the Lord your God. That's the beauty. He gave His body, Jesus Christ, think about it, gave His body to become the what? Curse. that our bodies have the promise of a resurrection with no more curse forever. And our souls cleanse from all impurity. I need that. And the Lord encourages us today that if we have Christ, we have all these promises. That doesn't mean you won't face sickness for the moment. You have a perspective through it though as a Christian. Death is not punishment. Death is an entrance into eternal life as our Heidelberg says. But there is an enemy that kills our bodies and that's death. And the Lord Jesus Christ has said, I've come to beat death, sin, and the grave so that you would have your boasts this morning in him. Along the way, we all enter the gates of Goshen by faith. We believe him. And when we believe him, we are cleansed. And then he makes us able to stand. And that's the hope that's given to us at the end of the book of Jude, which says, now to him who is able, think about this, to make you stand and present you before the throne of glory with faultless, with exceeding joy. Tonight, tonight, it's fascinating. Paul says in our, we land on in 1 Corinthians, it's the gospel by which you stand. One thought, and I close with this. You know how the journal of the plague year by Defoe ends? Once the plague had ceased in London, it died out and everyone got back with life. Defoe writes, many of the people, it can be said, were thankful for the deliverance. But I must own that for the generality of the people, it might too justly be said of them as it was of the children of Israel after their being delivered from the host of Pharaoh when they passed through the Red Sea and looked back and saw the Egyptians overwhelmed in the water. They sang his praise but they soon forgot his works. Don't be one of those. But that's not how the journal ends. Here's how the journal ends. Listen to this. A dreadful plague in London was in the year 65 which swept away a hundred thousand souls away yet I alive. It's the end of the book. A dreadful plague in London was in the year 65, which swept 100,000 souls away, yet I alive. When your life is over, if you could capture, if you could capture your life in a short poem, the story of your life, wouldn't it sound something similar? A dreadful plague in the world there was in the year of our Lord, which swept 100,000 at your side, Psalm 91. Yet I alive. I alive. I hope you can in confidence say right now, the Lord's blessing is on me and not curse. And I live by His grace. He's able to make me stand. And that only comes through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Gracious Heavenly Father, You teach us so much in the Scriptures about your gospel and your peace and your love. Thank you for your faithfulness, Lord. And as we see these afflictions and as we study them, we know that when we come to Christ, we have been cleansed and that whatever then happens to us in this life, whatever sicknesses, whatever trials and even death, it doesn't mean that you're against us. You've told us that you sent your Son to remedy that problem and that one day there will be a new heavens and a new earth where we will dwell with no more sickness, no more sorrow, no more death, but let us not put our trust in doctors or men, but in the Lord who gives us the ultimate healing that we need, the ultimate need for the forgiveness of our sins. And through His precious blood, we have triumphed in Him over death and the grave. and so be with us and if there be any here today who've not turned, let them turn today. Let them enter the gates of Goshen like the Egyptians who realized that outside of Jesus there is no hope. And may you work deeply in the hearts of all of us to love you, to trust you, and to live by faith as you have taught us to do in the Lord Jesus Christ all the days of our life. And afterward, we will be received into glory alive. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.