I invite you to turn in the Scriptures this morning. If you're a visitor, we're working through the book of Exodus and we've come to the plagues. And we are on the second plague, Exodus chapter 8. Exodus chapter 8. Today, as I said, is Mother's Day and I thought, there's no better passage greater to consider than frogs on Mother's Day. I'll tell you why during the course of the sermon. Exodus 8, we'll begin at verse 1 and read through verse 15. This is the word of the Lord. Then the Lord said to Moses, Go into Pharaoh and say to him, Thus says the Lord, Let my people go that they may serve me. But if you refuse to let them go, behold, I will plague all your country with frogs. The Niles shall swarm with frogs. They 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, the frogs shall come up on you and on your people and on all your servants. 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. So Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt and the frogs came up and covered the land of Egypt. But the magicians did the same by their secret arts and made frogs come up on the land of Egypt. Then Pharaoh called Moses and Aaron and said, plead with the Lord to take away the frogs from me and my people and I will let the people go to sacrifice to the Lord. 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 may be cut off from you and your houses and be left only in the Nile. 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. The frogs shall go away from you and your houses and your servants and your people. They shall only be left in the Nile. So Moses and Aaron went out from Pharaoh and Moses cried out to the Lord about the frogs as he had agreed with Pharaoh. And the Lord did according to the word of Moses. The frogs died out in the houses, the courtyards, and the fields, and they gathered them together in the heaps, and the land stank. But when Pharaoh saw that there was a respite, he hardened his heart and would not listen to them as the Lord had said. May the Lord bless the hearing of his word. The center of this section, you'll notice this in the plagues, is a little nugget is given to you in the middle of the plagues. I think next time is the finger of God. This one, you'll notice that the heart of it says there in verse 10 that the intention of this when he takes them away is that Pharaoh may know that there is no one like the Lord, there's the holy name, our God. It's a moving statement in light of all that we've been considering and that we have really been learning about the problem of idolatry. That's a really big teaching for us and for Israel here of what idolatry looks like. It's power, it's grip, it's hold over men's hearts. It was Calvin who used to say that men's hearts are idol factories. We make them constantly. And God was assaulting all these gods of Egypt to demonstrate to Pharaoh and all of Egypt and all the nations and ultimately to his people that there's no one like the Lord our God. Nobody. When they went on their wilderness way, they would struggle greatly with the problem of idols. They never spoke. They never comforted. They never helped. They never delivered. And Israel was constantly bowing to them. So this passage would have a lot for future generations to reflect upon. Why would you do that? Why would you do that? And what we're seeing is, is that in Egypt, they didn't have just a problem with one. Wouldn't it be easy if we only had a problem with one? Constant. They said there were 80 different supposed deities in Egypt. And there's this powerful section here that arises in our text now, and that teaches us something even more about the human heart, when it says at the end of this for the first time, not that God was hardening Pharaoh's heart. It has said that. It will say that. But this time it says that Pharaoh hardens his heart. That's such an important point about the human heart and idolatry. And this morning we should walk away from this and we should all walk out the door and say, you know, why would we ever do that? There's nobody like the Lord our God. Why would we ever put something else in front of Him? And do we see what they are? We should trust the Lord. he should be our god he has said he is our god and we are his people why would i give that kind of devotion to idols anything else if we look to it will leave you sort of like the last scene of the last first plague digging around the nile looking for water i want to look at this this morning then with that goal in mind understanding that there's nobody like the lord our god so god the lord sends here moses to his servant pharaoh moses his servant to pharaoh and you'll notice that we have the same command given moses is speaking just what the lord had told him to speak moses you go say this the lord said to moses go into pharaoh and say to him thus says the lord let my people go that they may serve me now this was always a command pharaoh didn't have the option this was not uh maybe he was to set free god's people this is what the lord commanded moses came and the first thing before these plagues god comes to him and god wants this single great phrase continued to be repeated before pharaoh over and over and i hope it's it's beginning to sink in with us let my people go i don't want to ever lose that point what a wonderful god we have i said last time if he didn't say that you would never get out you and your children would be stuck in all kinds of idols and we know what's behind idols or demons and it's behind this prince of the power of the air this god is so much in control and he sees everything that's behind it he is bound and determined to set us free and our children Let them go. But why then does God plague? Maybe you've struggled with that and you look at the things that happen in the world and you say, why is God doing that? Revelation told us. Go pour out your bowls on the earth. Turn their waters to blood. Why? For they've shed the blood of saints and prophets. And You have given them blood to drink. You've turned it back on them. It's what they deserve. And I heard the altar saying, Yes, Lord God Almighty. Just and true are Your judgments. God is not doing anything in this world willy-nilly. God's not plaguing this world willy-nilly just to have fun. He's setting you free. He's keeping in check the control that the realm of darkness wants to have upon us and here it's all exposed in this power of idolatry this real problem of idolatry that the lord is shattering its hold i mean how much does the first second commandments how much do they mean to us as we're studying these right now they think about we hear the commandments over and over but how much do they mean now when you hear i am the lord your god who brought you out of the land of egypt out of the house of bondage you shall have no other God's before me. You shall not worship them. You shall not bow down to them. For I, the Lord, your God, you, Lord, your God, you're my people. I'm a jealous God. I'm not sharing my glory with anyone else. I'm your God and I've set you free. That's how much I love you. That's how much I care for you. That's how much you mean to me. That's how much He loves us. The whole mission of Christ was to come and that's why I did the law reading I did this morning was not to let people stand in between opinions, not to wander between opinions like on Mount Carmel. No, he is saying, choose you this day. I'm setting my people free. Come. Because to remain in bondage is death to you. And I'm going to teach you a little bit about how I feel about that. This is the message here. If you refuse to let them go, Pharaoh, behold, I will plague all your country with frogs. The Nile shall swarm with frogs and they shall come up into your house and into your bedroom and on your bed, into the houses of your servants and your people and into your ovens and in your kneading bowls. The frogs will come up upon you and your people and on all your servants. I wonder why he chose frogs. I always like those little critters. God says the river is going to team with frogs. This is key to understanding the plague. I want you to think for a minute back to creation when at the beginning God said, let the water swarm. It's that word team with living creatures. It was his desire there. And then we see it with man, that man fill the earth, that man team throughout the earth. and that the earth would team with people belonging to him. Be fruitful, be multiplied, fill the earth, God commanded. At the fall, God said this. He said that again. Be fruitful, these teeming people. And from this teeming people, he would raise up a champion. He would raise up a champion who would crush the head of the serpent and he would free his people from that tyranny of the devil and set us free. And this champion would do it coming from the teeming people. What do you get when you come to Exodus 1? This is one of the first things that's said out of the mouth, right out of the gates of Exodus. But the children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly, multiplied and grew exceedingly mightily and the land was teeming with them. Teeming with them. The whole land was teeming with God's people, God's kingdom. And God is showing us here and wants us to think a little bit about all that we've learned from Genesis. This was the original mandate. This was one of the things that God had given. Let the earth be fruitful. You be fruitful. Multiply. Fill the earth. They were fulfilling the mandate. God was blessing them. What's the opening scene of Exodus? Pharaoh comes along and Pharaoh says, they're too numerous. That's the very thing he says. They're too numerous. I want you to take their babies and I want you to cast them in the Nile. Well, that should take on a little bit of meaning by now. That's not just throwing them in a body of water, is it? It was saying, I want you to take and throw them to our God. I want you to cast them into the Nile and let our God devour these teeming Israelites. Remember, there were three gods of the Nile. The most relevant being Hapai. The God of the Nile was the source of life to Egypt. And the first plague, remember, God says, I want you to take your great rod, Moses, and I want you to go down when Pharaoh's doing morning devotions and singing his praise songs, and I want you to raise that rod, and I want you to strike or bash the Nile right in front of him. You wham that thing. And it's all going to turn into blood. Figured out why? Just as they had shed the blood of God's children. Revelation 16. He's turning their whole God into blood. Sending a message. They even saw their idols bleed last time of wood and stone. but as i said last time the first two plagues were directed against the gods of the nile pharaoh was trying to stamp out the teeming israelites and the message by by really messing with fertility and fertility rates especially with the use of the midwives you remember this this is all sort of coming back to us now why is this so relevant the use of the midwives and that's why now we need to consider why god sent the frogs upon them god says to moses go to pharaoh I'm going to strike the river and frogs are going to come out of there. They're going to team out of there. Everyone look carefully at verse 3. So the Nile shall swarm, team with frogs. She'll come up into your house, your bedroom, and kneading bowls and beds. They're going to come up on you and your people and on all your servants. will come up out of the Nile. So from the place where I've turned it to blood, where you shed blood, now a woeful, as one pastor said, amphibious invasion is coming upon you. Frogs are coming upon you. Meet my frog team six. If the older people don't know what that is, that's the seal team six. When I was a kid, I loved to play with frogs. I would collect them in buckets, believe it or not. I would go to the Central Valley and collect them in buckets and all these valley frogs. And I remember, and here's the Mother's Day connection, my mom would come out and yell at me because they died in the buckets. And so after this sermon, I assure you, no kid will ever bring a frog in the house, I promise you. These guys were your friends, right? They meant you no harm. It's almost a comical kind of plague. It reminds me of Psalm 2. Really, he who is in the heavens shall laugh. God is threatening here to send a swarm of frogs upon them. Millions. You understand the significance of the plague? The frog was sacred in Egypt. They were everywhere. Ancient historians or Egyptians called them the hefen. Do you know what the hefen means? the hieroglyphic word for 100,000. In fact, it was so revered you couldn't even kill it. The reason for that is because one of the gods of the Egyptian pantheon was Hecate, who I pictured for you. The frog goddess. And they would bow down to the frog goddess every day. Hecate was believed by the Egyptians to be the wife of the creator god, Noom. She was a tall woman with the head of a frog. You'd think they'd be a little bit more creative. What they believed about Hecate was fascinating. They believed two things about her. First, they believed she controlled the population of frogs because there were so many. But here's the most relevant this morning. I found this just fascinating. Frogs were known as a sign of fertility in Egypt. There were so many, they attributed frog population control to Hecate. She was the code enforcer and enforcement of the frog. Hecate would control frog populations by watching over the crocodiles who loved to get an afternoon snack on the crocs by the frogs. She was the goddess of fertility where she was particularly, now think about this, she was particularly known and called out upon by the Egyptian midwives when babies were being born. Midwives were called servants of Hecate. So they believed that Hecate would come when a baby was being born and Hecate would give life. And the Egyptian women would cry out in the midst of it and they would cry out in labor pains to Hecate. You see what Pharaoh did? By commanding the midwives to kill the Hebrew midwives, to kill and throw into the Nile was an awful fertility control method used by Pharaoh and they believed, enforced by Hecate, to wipe out the enemies of Egypt. You cast them into the Nile. Are you getting it now? The Lord's first two plagues are against the Nile gods. But when we look at the bigger picture, we see the Lord attacking what? Two things. The Nile River where Hebrew babies were thrown, turned into blood. Their Nile God has been judged and now the goddess of the Egyptian midwives is completely shamed. God has turned their life source into blood. And now He's going to overwhelm their country with so many frogs They're going to loathe the frog. The frog's coming out of their ears. I thought about this this morning and this week. Our God is so just. Have you already forgotten about those little babies that were thrown in the Nile? My guess is we studied Exodus chapter 1. Hasn't even been on our radar, has it? We moved on. Those little babies were thrown into the Nile to the crop. Think of all the injustices that go on. Does God forget? Already in our study of Exodus, I forgot about those little babies. I thought nothing more after chapter 1. God forgets none of it. And He's responding right away to it in the plagues. that is so comforting to me we feel helpless we feel distressed we feel powerless and heck it's alive and well today I couldn't help but think about how awful it is we slaughter unborn babies I just couldn't help and it tells you that there is warfare happening in the womb and right at the beginning and we have no idea the spiritual stuff that's going on just through the birth of a baby. God, the author of life, said at the beginning, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. Teem throughout the earth. Fill my earth. And the whole struggle after the fall from the beginning is captured in Revelation 12 where it says, there he was, the dragon, standing before the woman who was ready to give birth to devour her child as soon as it was born. It's history. Right there. What do you think God does when he looks down from heaven and sees in a nation the legalization of the murder of 57 million, that's what they say is the going rate, unborn babies. when he's the giver of life. And the Lord is here showing us that he's giving Egypt a measure of judgment in dealing and confronting that terrible, wicked sin. In fact, in the final plague, what does he do? He takes out their babies. It's judgment on a nation that slaughtered his people and that killed his people. Remember, there's two peoples in the earth, those under the control of Satan, Genesis 3, and those who are Christ's. So now you're sort of getting some understanding of this. Aaron stretches out his rod, and there comes an army of frogs right on out of the place of death. An army of frogs. They have never seen that covered Egypt. Out of the Nile come their own gods against them, swarming and teeming on them. teeming everywhere in Egypt. There came the face of Hecate, millions strong, and they couldn't kill him. They worshiped them. This wasn't so dangerous as it was plain offensive. One pastor said, it's the greatest nuisance you could ever have in life. I think it's right. What a nuisance. Frogs everywhere. The Bible gives you great detail here, and I think it's building this up. You should feel it. Imagine how offensive this was. All of the women are wearing amulets of Hecate, and now millions of them have covered the ground, are swarming into their houses, are these slimy, swampy, cold, amphibious invasion of frogs. You know what they do when you pick up a frog? It pees. What's implied here is that there were so many frogs. Everywhere they stepped, they stepped on one. Crunch. Egyptians didn't wear shoes. Their beds weren't off the ground. Mom goes in to the oven. Hopefully the oven wasn't on, by the way. The frogs are in there. You have a lot of frog leg. You can picture an Egyptian mom making dinner and she grabs the kneading bowl and there's frogs jumping out everywhere. They say they had a lice outbreak the other day at Calvin. Nine kids. That's not an outbreak. That should make the teachers feel a lot better. Egypt is totally infested with frogs, peeing and croaking everywhere. And the irony is, is that they even attacked Pharaoh. Think about this. This is what the Psalms pick up about this. Pharaoh, remember, is a god. He was not to come in contact with the common person. But as one pastor said, frogs are no respecters of persons. They jumped and they peed on Pharaoh. They were in his bed, they were in his meals. Psalm 105, their land abounded with frogs even in the chambers of their kings. You know, the Proverbs pick up on that point. And they said, there are four things which are little on the earth, but they are exceedingly wise. You know what it is? The spider skillfully grasps with his hands. And it's in king's palaces. You know what that means? These little spiders can walk right up on into king's palaces and build their home wherever they want. Have you ever stopped and thought about that? Nobody can just walk into a king's palace, but a spider can. Frogs are all in Pharaoh's palace. They're in his bed. Millions of little Hecats all over the place. What an attack on their God. As they had tried to remove God's people from the earth and keep them from teeming, God now teems Hecats so much, they loathe the frog. Frogs took down the mightiest kingdom of the day. Do you understand that point? I find that so remarkable. God took down a kingdom with frogs. That's what we should say. He sent frogs, Psalm 78, which destroyed them. You want your gods? I'll send your gods upon you. You're going to get so much, you're going to loathe them. They're going to be a curse to you. Then it gets worse. By the end of this thing, guess what happened? There were so many frogs and then they died. Verse 14 says, They gathered them together in heaps and the land stank. Can you imagine the heaps of frogs? You ever smelled a rotten frog? I've never smelled one, but I know in biology class when we opened up a frog, it stunk. We have a water shortage right now. It's largely caused by our saving of the delta smelt, a fish. This would be like, to give you some comparison, turning on your faucets and all that comes out are smelts. Smelts here, smelts there, out of your shower, smelt, smelt, smelt, smelt. And then what do you think would happen if they died? I'm not trying to read Providence here. I don't think we should do that. Nor am I trying to say that a plague happens for this reason or that. But judgments do happen. And we shouldn't be afraid to remember Romans 1, that God does do this. I read an article the other day that our state capitol has a huge problem right now. Where all the laws are made and where the governor resides, you know what it is? It stinks. I'm not saying this honestly. Something stinks in Sacramento. Sacramento stinks because there's no more water to wash out the sewer under it. Something stunk in Egypt that day. Why is that so important? I'll tell you. Turn back to chapter 5. Remember what Israel said to Moses when Moses first went into Pharaoh and failed? Exodus 5. They met Moses and Aaron. This is verse 20. They met Moses and Aaron who were waiting for them and as they came out from Pharaoh and they said to them, the Lord look upon you and judge because you have made us stink in the sight of Pharaoh and his servants and you put a sword in their hand to kill us. You have made us stink before Pharaoh. Do you see what these two plagues just accomplished? God struck down their gods and God has judged their God of fertility so that now before God, all of Egypt stinks. And that leads Pharaoh at this point, and there's a big message in that. That leads Pharaoh to cry for intercession. And it happens in verse 8 where we read that then Pharaoh called Moses and Aaron and said, Plead with the Lord to take away the frogs for me and my people and I will let the people go sacrifice to the Lord. There it is. He uses the name. He does it. We're making some progress. And I'll let the people go. A lot of people cry out when life falls apart on them. A lot of people recognize the God of heaven and earth when life falls apart on them. I'm going to get it straightened out now. Time to make some real changes. Pray to the Lord for me, says Pharaoh, that none of the things which you have spoken may come upon me. Wouldn't it have been great if Pharaoh said, I've sinned against the Lord Moses. How can I find favor in his sight and be forgiven? Wouldn't that have been great? Pray to the Lord that he'll take away the frogs. In God's great long-suffering and kindness, he stops the plague at Moses' intercession. We read a sad statement though. Pharaoh saw that there was relief and he hardened his heart and he did not heed them as the Lord had said. he willingly hardened his heart. When he saw that there was room, there was some relief. There had been enough relief, enough space so that he no longer could feel the consequences of his idolatry. He hardened his own heart. And it leads to the question here. Have we hardened our hearts against the Lord? Or have we believed and turned to Him and said, there's nobody like the Lord our God. Moses wanted us to understand that he gave Pharaoh the option to save the time so that Pharaoh would know that. You know Revelation says that frogs are coming again upon the earth? And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs coming out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet, for there are spirits of demons performing signs which go out to the kings of the earth and of the whole world to gather them to the battle of the great day of God Almighty. The frogs that Revelation describes are deceiving spirits that blind people, that align people against the Lord and against His anointed. All of history culminated. All of history came together when the dragon stood before the woman who was to give birth and tried to dump that child into the blood-filled Nile, if you will. But she prevailed and she bore a male child. And he rules the nations with a rod of iron. And when he came, he didn't turn things to blood. His first miracle was to turn water into wine. And because of Him today, because of Him, our champion, His kindness, His forbearance, His patience, His love. All that you enjoy in this life, have you ever thought about this? It's meant to lead you to Him. When Paul was preaching to the pagans, Lystra, he said something. He didn't leave himself without witness. He did good by giving you rains from heaven. He didn't have to this last week. He gave you fruitful seasons. He satisfied your hearts with food and gladness. Do you know that when you eat and when you enjoy all the goodness in this life, it comes from him? He doesn't have to. He could plague, and he does at times to remind us of this, that there is ultimate blows coming. He could turn our Nile into blood. Our paper palace could come down tomorrow. The great problem is true. Before this holy God, without a Savior, we all stink. But when you come to Christ, and when you come to Him and you know that there's nobody like the Lord your God, when you love Him, do you know what He does for you? You have become the aroma of Christ. You have become before God a sweet-smelling sacrifice which is pleasing to Him. He is able to give you hearts that love Him and know Him and are freed. Do you want this bondage? Nobody wants this. You'd be crazy to choose this bondage. He can set you free. He's saying, let my people go. And he's determined to accomplish it and not one will be lost. Can you believe that? Not one will be lost and all who comes to him, he'll never cast out and they become his sweet smelling aroma. And he can deliver you with frogs if he wants. How does that make you feel? Just ensure you've aligned on the right side. Today, he says, come out. Be separate. Go out from their midst and be separate from them, says the Lord. Don't touch any unclean thing. I will welcome you. I will be a father to you. You shall be my sons and my daughters, says the Lord God Almighty. Isn't he wonderful? A pleasing aroma to me, says the Lord your God, who called you out of the land of Egypt, that you might be his special treasure and people, and he's going to take you home. Let's thank him this morning in prayer. Gracious Heavenly Father, we bow the head so thankful and overwhelmed by the way that you respond to us. You remind us through this about the severity of your judgment. You remind us that you are giving blows to this world that wants to hold us and persecute us. And you tell us today clearly that as we enjoy all these benefits in life, food and gladness and breath and getting up in the morning and seeing the new mercies every morning, the cloud formations, the sun, the stars, all these things, all of that should lead us to you to repentance. May it do so. May we have hearts that are soft. Give us newborn hearts that love you. And that are able to say hey, there's nobody like the Lord our God. Why would we want anything else? Why would we bow to anything else? Why would we give our devotion to anything else? Confront any hard heart like Pharaoh's here today. Soften it. May all of your people come to Christ loving, embracing, and realizing how wonderful the Lord our God has been to us. Receive our thanksgiving for your powerful deliverance and for saying, let my people go. May we treasure you all the days of our life. In Jesus' name, amen.