Sermon Title: "The Lessons of Suffering: God's Sovereignty in the Plagues of Egypt"
Exodus 9:13-14 And Yahweh said to Moses, “Rise up early in the morning and stand before Pharaoh, and you shall say to him, ‘Thus says Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews, “Let My people go, that they may serve Me. 14 For this time I will send all My plagues against your heart and amongst your servants and your people, so that you may know that there is no one like Me in all the earth.
We come today to the part of the story of Exodus where God sends plagues against Egypt. We kind of jumped over part of the story. Last time we looked at Moses being called by God to go back to Egypt, and Pharaoh, and deliver the Children of Israel. We are skipping over those initial encounters Moses had as he first told the children of Israel and Pharaoh about God’s command.
I told you that in our “Firm Foundations” series we would be looking at the major themes of Scripture. We have looked at Moses calling, and today we move to the 10 plagues God brought against Egypt, and the suffering that came along with them. And you can hardly find a bigger theme in Scripture than suffering.
The question of suffering was pushed to the forefront of the minds of everyone involved in this narrative. It is a question that is frequently addressed in Scripture. And it has been on the mind of the world’s people, and God’s people from the dawn of time to the present time. Here are some of those questions people ask that come from “the question of suffering.”
Theological and Philosophical Questions
So, we’ve heard those questions, and we’ve wrestled with the answers, coming to some answers, and frankly, letting some of them simmer on the back burner of our minds because we didn’t know what to do with them.
Well, today we come to a part of the Biblical narrative where there is going to be a lot of suffering. Except in this case, the case of the plagues brought against Egypt, it is undeniable that God sent them, that they caused suffering, and that God had a specific purpose in mind when He sent them.
So, that is specifically what I want to look at over the next couple of weeks. "The Lessons of Suffering: God's Sovereignty in the Plagues of Egypt"
prayer
Before we begin with the accounts of the specific plagues, I think there are three things that we need to say about suffering as a foundation.
I. Introduction:
One of the first principles that we learn about suffering in Scripture is that it is pervasive. It is everywhere and it hits everyone. From the very first man and woman, who were cast out of the Garden of Eden, and felt the first pain of labor, in tilling the ground, and in bearing children, there was suffering. And they passed it to their children. Of the first two boys, one was murdered, and the other was an outcast from humanity. Everyone endures suffering. You are not alone. Here’s what the Bible has to say.
Job 5:7 (NIV)"Yet man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upward."
Job 14:1 “Man, who is born of woman, Is [a]short-lived and full of turmoil.
Ecclesiastes 2:23 Because all his days his endeavor is painful and vexing; even at night his heart does not lie down.
And not only does every person suffer, but all the world suffers.
Romans 8:22 (ESV) "For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now."
Even Christians suffer.
1 Corinthians 10:13 (NIV) "No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind..."
The word for temptation here is better translated tribulation or trouble, or testing. The emphasis of that verse is on God’s faithfulness, but it imparts to us another truth. The troubles that are common to all mankind, have overtaken Christians as well.
And Christians also experience extra suffering because of their faith.
1 Peter 5:9 (ESV) "...knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world."
John 16:33 (NIV) "In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." — Jesus
So, everyone suffers. And there is a second foundational truth.
What that means is that God is in control of it all. Some people present suffering as though it is only the result of a chaotic world. You know, Adam and Eve, and Satan came into the kitchen and knocked all kinds of things, spilled things, broke eggs, and now God comes in to find the mess, and start cleaning it up. That is a picture of God as passive, and absent in the affairs of the world. But that’s not what Scripture tells us about the suffering of the world and God’s part in it.
Genesis 50:20 (ESV) — Joseph speaking to his brothers who betrayed him:
"As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today."
Joseph was saying that God orchestrated his being enslaved and imprisoned, in order to equip him to be the man who would be the savior of his family. That is not a portrait of God who was unaware that a mess was being made and them came in to clean it up. Listen to this.
Lamentations 3:37–38 (ESV) "Who has spoken and it came to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it? Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come?"
Job 1:21 (NIV) "The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised."
Isaiah 45:7 (ESV) "I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the Lord, who does all these things."
God is in charge of it all. And the third truth.
Daniel 4:35 (ESV) "All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, ‘What have you done?’"
Romans 5:3–5 (ESV) "Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope..."
Romans 8:28 (ESV) "And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose."
2 Corinthians 1:3–4 (ESV) "God of all comfort… comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction..."
2 Corinthians 12:7–9 (ESV) — Paul’s “thorn in the flesh”:
"Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’”
James 1:2–4 (NIV) "Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance."
In suffering, God fulfills His purposes. He reveals His sovereignty, defeats false powers, and refines His people. And the same held true when He sent Moses to Pharaoh. As He would say to Moses later.
“I will gain glory for myself through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord.” – Exodus 14:4
Suffering is never random. God uses suffering to reveal His character and His unmatched power. Both the oppressor and the oppressed have something to learn in suffering. So those are three foundational truths that we need to be aware of as we look at these plagues through the lens of suffering.
And before we look at the plagues, let me say one more thing. We often read the story of the 10 plagues as though they only brought suffering and pain to Pharaoh and the Egyptians. But that is not the case. First off, when Moses first went to Pharaoh to relieve the suffering of the children of Israel, to deliver them from their hard bondage, when he said to Pharaoh, “Let my people go,” Pharaoh responded by increasing the suffering of God’s people. Remember? They labored to make bricks for Pharaoh’ building projects. The bricks were made of clay and straw that was provided. But after Moses went to Pharaoh to liberate them, Pharaoh said,
Exodus 5: 6 So on that day Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters over the people and their foremen, saying, 7 “You are no longer to give the people straw to make brick as previously; let them go and gather straw for themselves. 8 But the quota of bricks which they were making previously, you shall set upon them; you are not to reduce any of it. Because they are lazy, therefore they are crying out, ‘[d]Let us go and sacrifice to our God.’ 9 Let their slavery be hard on the men, and let them work at it so that they will have no regard for false words.”
14 Moreover, the foremen of the sons of Israel, whom Pharaoh’s taskmasters had set over them, were beaten [g]and were asked, “Why have you not completed your required amount either yesterday or today in making brick as previously?”
Suffering increased. And second, the children of Israel were affected by some of the plagues. It is not until the 4th plague that it says that Israel was protected from the plague. There is no mention of protection from the first three; water turned to blood, frogs, and lice, gnats, or mosquitoes.
Each plague was a direct confrontation with specific Egyptian gods. God's sovereignty is shown in His ability to control what others worshipped. And the suffering endured from the plagues taught both the Egyptians and the Israelites some important lessons.
But that being said, let’s look at some of these lessons God was teaching through suffering.
II. The Plagues and the Defeat of Egypt's Gods: God's Sovereignty Over All Creation
1. Water to Blood: Teaching Pharaoh to listen
Exodus 7:14–23 14 Then Yahweh said to Moses, “Pharaoh’s heart is [a]hard with firmness; he refuses to let the people go. 15 Go to Pharaoh in the morning [b]as he is going out to the water, and station yourself to meet him on the bank of the Nile; and you shall take in your hand the staff that was turned into a serpent. 16 And you shall say to him, ‘Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews, sent me to you, saying, “Let My people go, that they may serve Me in the wilderness. But behold, you have not listened until now.” 17 Thus says Yahweh, “By this you shall know that I am Yahweh: behold, I am about to strike [c]the water that is in the Nile with the staff that is in my hand, and it will be turned to blood. 18 And the fish that are in the Nile will die, and the Nile will [d]become foul, and the Egyptians will be weary of drinking water from the Nile.”’”
So, Moses goes to Pharaoh and threatens to turn the water of the Nile to blood. He had previously presented signs to Pharaoh demonstrating God’s power, but Pharaoh was not moved by the signs. In fact, he retaliated against the children of Israel by making their work harder. So, Moses comes back to him and says, “Because you didn’t listen this is going to happen. And there is the first life lesson about suffering.
Pharaoh, “When you don’t listen to the signs, then come the judgments.” It kind of mirrors what we do as parents doesn’t it? “I’ve told you, I’ve instructed you, I’ve given you the rules, I’ve made myself clear, you didn’t listen. So now punishment must follow. You didn’t listen with your ears. So maybe now you will listen if I speak to your ears, and your bottom.”
The first purpose of suffering is to get our attention. And the water turning to blood did just that. You see, God was striking them at the heart of their religious system and life.
God turning the waters of the Nile to blood involved an insult to their religion, and discredited the Nile-god, Hapi. They worshipped him and brought sacrifices to him to insure that the Nile did what it was supposed to do. They depended on the Nile overflowing its banks annually to nourish their crops which supplied their food. But now the river, its tributaries, canals and reservoirs were turned to blood.
Ellicott’s commentary
“It is a great physical affliction. They are accustomed to use the Nile water for drinking, for ablutions, for the washing of their clothes, and for culinary purposes; they have great difficulty in procuring any other; they delight in the Nile water, regard it as the best in the world, are in the habit of drinking deep draughts of it continually. This is all put a stop to. They suffer from thirst, from enforced uncleanliness, from the horror of blood all about them, even in their cisterns. Again, their fish are killed. Fish was one of their principal foods, perhaps the main food of the common people; and the river was the chief source whence the fish supply was obtained, for even the Lake Moeris was an off-shoot from the river (Herod. ii. 149).
And the plague also sent a message. Ellicott goes on.
The punishment is retaliatory: for as they had made the Nile the means of destroying Hebrew infants (Exodus 1:22), so that Hebrew parents had loathed to drink of it, as though stained with the blood of their children, so is it now made by means of blood undrinkable for themselves.”
The plague went on for seven days during which time the people had to dig for other sources of water. Again, let me mention that there is no mention that the land of Goshen, where the Israelites were, was protected from this plague. Seven days of thirst. Seven days of desperately seeking water for family and animals.
Now, there is also no mention that Pharaoh was moved by this plague.
22 Yet the [h]magicians of Egypt did [i]the same with their secret arts; and Pharaoh’s heart was [j]hardened with strength, and he did not listen to them, as Yahweh had spoken. 23 Then Pharaoh turned and went into his house, and he did not set his heart even on this.
Why didn’t this plague affect him? I think it is because it didn’t affect him. Let me tell you this, if there is a water shortage, Pharaoh is still getting his water. He has servants. The whole nation are his servants. Pharaoh is not digging any wells.
But why did God send suffering to this land at this time? To get them to open their ears and listen. What did He want them to hear?
Your source of life is not the Nile, or the god of the Nile. Only God is the source of life. Only God controls and sustains nations.
And God still uses suffering to get us to open our ears. We get comfortable in this life. We come to rely on things that we think will always be there; our health, our job, our family. And sometimes, the true God is replaced or moved to second or third place by an idol. We can make idols of things in our lives by valuing them more than God. And God can and does bring suffering to remind us.
“He delivers the afflicted by their affliction and opens their ear by adversity.” – Job 36:15
2 Chronicles 12: Now it happened that when the kingdom of Rehoboam was established and strong, he and all Israel with him forsook the law of Yahweh. 2 Now it happened in the fifth year of King Rehoboam, because they had been unfaithful to Yahweh, that Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem...
7 When Yahweh saw that they humbled themselves, the word of Yahweh came to Shemaiah, saying, “They have humbled themselves so I will not bring them to ruin, but I will grant them some measure of escape, and My wrath shall not be poured out on Jerusalem by the hand of Shishak. 8 But they will become his slaves so that they may know the difference between My slavery and the slavery of the kingdoms of the countries.”
Psalm 119:67, 71, 75 (ESV) “Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep your word.” (v.67)
“It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes.” (v.71)
“I know, O Lord, that your rules are righteous, and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me.” (v.75)
Hebrews 12:10–11 (ESV) “For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”
So, suffering comes to open our ears. Well, Pharaoh’s ears weren’t opened.
2. Frogs: Manifesting God’s power
Exodus 8:1–15 Then Yahweh said to Moses, “Come to Pharaoh and say to him, ‘Thus says Yahweh, “Let My people go, that they may serve Me. 2 But if you refuse to let them go, behold, I [b]will smite your whole territory with frogs. 3 And the Nile will swarm with frogs, and they will go up and come 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 on your people and on all your servants.”’”
So, you might notice that something is missing here that will be in several of the plagues to come. In several of the plagues, the suffering becomes so bad that Pharaoh relents, says he will let the people go, and asks that the plague be stopped. He didn’t do that with the blood, the lice, the livestock or the boils. What that may indicate is that their effects just naturally abated, or that he allowed the nation to continue suffering for his lack of repentance. Well, it never says that the water turning to blood was taken away. I think that means that like any river, time heals. Waters flow in that eventually heal the river. The Nile probably remained fetid and nasty for many days and weeks after the initial plague, but the effect slowly wore off as fresh water flowed in.
Which tells us why God brought a new kind of suffering. This was a suffering that demonstrated God’s absolute power.
In this plague God struck at their supposed goddess Heqet, the frog-headed goddess of fertility. Imagine, their goddess of fertility had the head of a frog. But the reasons for that were that first off, the frogs came out of the Nile at the time of its flooding. They came at a time of fertility for the land. And because they were the symbols of this goddess, Egyptians were forbidden to intentionally kill them. But now they just seemed to multiply out of the waters.
And God didn’t just bring a few.
“We may take it, therefore, as certain that the second infliction upon Egypt was an innumerable multitude of frogs, which came up out of the river, and infested the cities, the houses, the sleeping apartments, the beds, the ovens, and the kneading troughs. There was no escaping them. They entered the royal palace no less than the peasant’s cottage; they penetrated to the inner chambers; they leaped upon the couches and beds; they polluted the baking utensils, and defiled the water and the food.
And remember that because the frog was a sacred animal they could not intentionally kill them. “even their involuntary slaughter was not unfrequently punished with death.
But there were now so many that you couldn’t walk anywhere without potentionally stepping on them. If you opened a door, they were there and might be crushed. One commentator I read pointed out what kind of frog was prevalent in that area. “
The peculiar kind, which has the scientific name of Rana Mosaica, resembles our toad, and is a disgusting object, which crawls rather than leaps, and croaks perpetually.”
He goes on to say,
“The visitation was horrible to the senses—nauseous, disgusting. The frogs were hideous to the eye, grating to the ear, repulsive to the touch. Their constant presence everywhere rendered them a continual torment. If other later plagues were more injurious, the plague of frogs was perhaps of all the most loathsome.”
Now, for the Israelites, this would have also been a time of suffering, but their suffering was lessoned in that they did not regard frogs as sacred. So, they could do their best to rid their houses of the frogs, and stop up any entry points to curtail the odious effect.
But why did God cause this suffering? Well, He is obviously still calling on Pharaoh, Egypt, and even the Israelites to listen. I suspect that now, many, if not most of the people began paying attention to what Moses said as God’s mouthpiece. But this plague also went a very long way to show God’s power.
How does it show God’s power following the plague of the blood? Think about the sequence of events here. The river, and much of the nation's water, had just been corrupted. It had become blood. It killed the fish, and anything living in the water. So, to have frogs multiply out of the water couldn’t have been a natural occurrence, because any frog's eggs or tadpoles in the water would have died in the previous plague.
Egypt had had years in the past where frogs had been more abundant that they normally were. But the fact that God just made them appear out of a poisoned river was a remarkable demonstration of power. And He wasn’t finished yet.
8 Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron and said, “Entreat Yahweh that He may cause the frogs to depart from me and from my people; and I will let the people go, that they may sacrifice to Yahweh.” 9 And Moses said to Pharaoh, “[h]May the honor be yours to tell me: when shall I entreat for you and for your servants and for your people, that the frogs be cut off from you and your houses, that they may remain 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 Yahweh our God. 11 And the frogs will depart from you and your houses and your servants and your people; they will remain only in the Nile.”
Pharaoh called for Moses to take care of the frogs. That was huge. This was the first sign of yielding. Pharaoh had borne the affliction of the water turned to blood without flinching, probably because individually he had suffered little from it.
But he was suffering from the frogs as much as anyone else. I’m sure he had servants trying to clear his residence of frogs without hurting the animals, or offending the goddess. But there were just so many of them that if he wasn’t avoiding a frog, he was tripping over a servant dealing with a frog. A d the personal inconvenience drove him to make a concession.
And on the face of it, he seems to have made great strides in his thinking. In asking Moses that they be taken away, he acknowledges that they came because of the power of Yahweh. He also acknowledges that only the Lord can make them go away. The narrative tells us that his magicians were able to make frogs appear with their incantations, but they could not make them disappear. He says “Intreat the Lord, that He may take them away.” He also acknowledges that Moses is the one who can ask God and make it happen. And he promises to “let the people go.”
God had brought Pharaoh to his knees with the suffering brought by the frogs, but God would further demonstrate His power. Moses says to Pharaoh, “Tell me what time to make them go away.”
Indulge me, Pharaoh. I don’t want there to be any doubt in your mind as to who has power. “When would you like the frogs to go away? Now, if it had been me, or you, what would you have said? “immediately.” But for some reason, Pharaoh says, tomorrow. And it happened when Moses directed that it happen.
13 So Yahweh 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 [i]became foul.
Again, God demonstrated His great power. He alone is to be glorified. He has the power of life and death.
And often, when all of life is peaches and cream, when life is a bed of roses, when life is great and everything is going our way, we forget God. We forget that He is the One who makes the sunshine, the rain, who showers blessings on both the just and the unjust. We become like the man in Jesus' parable whose riches increased dramatically. Who, looking over the abundance of his grain decided to big bigger barns, store his wealth and say to his soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease, eat, drink and be merry.”’ We easily forget God in prosperity. So, God brings suffering to cause us to acknowledge the source of life and of death.
1 Samuel 2:7 (ESV) “The Lord makes poor and makes rich; he brings low and he exalts.”
Job 1:21 (ESV) “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”
Deuteronomy 32:39 (ESV) “See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god beside me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.”
Well, that is a good start for us today in understanding God’s purposes in suffering. Let’s pray.
Heavenly Father, we come to you today as a people who have experienced suffering, fear, discouragement, and confusion. And Lord, we know that the suffering comes to everyone. Everyone of us here has a different story we could tell about the blows that we have endured in this life. But Lord help us to learn today that though we cannot expect a life without suffering, that sometimes we experience fear, discouragement, and confusion because we have not understood, or accepted that you are at work in us, even in our suffering. That your purposes are accomplished in suffering. Help us Lord to be able to say, “The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord.”