This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

This is day four together of our second week of studying through the book of
Exodus. So we're in chapter nine today. As we get to chapter nine, we're in the
midst of these ten plagues that came upon Egypt.

We want to look together today at what the deeper significance is of these ten
plagues. We've already seen the plagues of blood, the water turned to blood of
frogs, of gnats, of flies. There are three other plagues added to that in this
chapter.

First the plague of the death of the livestock, chapter nine verses one to
three. Then the Lord said to Moses, "Go to Pharaoh and say to him, 'This is what
the Lord the God of the Hebrews says. Let my people go so that they may worship
me.

If you refuse to let them go and continue to hold them back, the hand of the
Lord will bring a terrible plague against your livestock in the field, on your
horses and donkeys and camels and cattle and sheep and goats, a plague against
the livestock. ' And this plague came about. And then down in verse eight is the
plague of the boils.

Then the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, 'Take handfuls of soot from a furnace and
have Moses toss it in the air in the presence of Pharaoh. It will become a fine
dust over the whole land of Egypt and festering boils will break out on men and
animals throughout the land. ' And then down in verse 18 is the plague of hail.

'Therefore at this time tomorrow I will send the worst hail storm that has ever
fallen on Egypt from the day it was founded until now. Throughout Egypt hail
struck everything in the fields, both men and animals. It beat down everything
growing in the fields and stripped every tree.

The only place it did not hail was the land of Goshen where the Israelites were.
' So the plagues keep coming. And what does Pharaoh do?

Down in verse 27. Then Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron. 'This time I have
sinned,' he said to them.

'The Lord is in the right and I and my people are in the wrong. Pray to the Lord
for we have had enough thunder and hail. I will let you go.

You don't have to stay any longer. ' Moses replied, 'When I have gone out of the
city I will spread out my hands in prayer to the Lord. The thunder will stop and
there will be no more hail so that you may know that the earth is the Lord's.

But I know that you and your officials still do not fear the Lord. ' Verse 34.
'When Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunder had stopped, he
sinned again.

He and his officials hardened their hearts. ' So Pharaoh's heart was hard and he
would not let the Israelites go, just as the Lord had said through Moses. By the
way, before we look at the plagues, notice in verse 34 it says, 'He and his
officials hardened their hearts.

' So a couple of days ago when we talked about Pharaoh's hardened heart, I said,
'I do not believe God took away Pharaoh's free will. ' Here we see it acting
still. He is hardening his own heart.

It's not just something God's doing to him. It's a choice also that he is
making. But the focus today is not on that.

It's on these plagues. God uses these plagues to break the heart of Egypt so
that he can set his people free. Plagues here are an expression, a reality, of
the judgment of God.

And the truth, they're an expression of the truth, that God will judge that
which is binding you. That's a biblical truth you can see from Old Testament to
New, all the way to the Book of Revelation and the New Testament, all the way
through. God will judge that which is binding his people, that which is binding
you.

Israel is bound by Egypt, and God judged the Egyptians. But you have to realize
the Egyptians are bound here also. Exodus chapter 12 verse 12 says, "I will
bring judgment on the gods of Egypt.

I am the Lord. " In talking about these plagues, these plagues were all
judgments against their false gods because these false gods were binding them.
The plagues of Egypt judged the false gods of Egypt.

Did you ever wonder why God chose frogs and flies and the Nile River to judge?
These things were all the Egyptians' gods. Beginning with the Nile and going
through the death of the firstborn, God reveals his power over these false gods.

The judgment of the frogs is typical. The frog in Egypt was a goddess, a goddess
of fertility. Heget, the goddess of fertility, was represented by a frog.

When the Nile River finally began to overflow its banks again in the spring
rains, the frogs came out of that Nile River. It said there's life again,
there's spring again. Like we would say, an Easter egg is a symbol of spring.

For them, a frog was a symbol of spring, but it was more than a symbol of
spring. They made it into a goddess, a false god, a goddess of fertility, and
they were forbidden to destroy it. There's something almost humorous here.

God says, "You want frogs? You want to worship frogs? Here's frogs.

" So they got frogs in their houses, frogs in their beds, frogs baked with their
food in the ovens, frogs in the kneading trough that was worked up in their
bread, frogs with a monotonous croak, frogs with their cold, slimy skins
everywhere from morning to night, from night to morning. They were frogs. God
was judging the gods of the Egyptians because he was freeing not only his
people, but he was inviting them to freedom.

He was showing them the foolishness of these false gods. You want to see Satan's
bonds broken in your life, then you have to see the false gods in your life set
aside. Now, not many of us today worship frogs and flies, but the truth is,
anything, anything that you place ahead of God, anything that you follow instead
of God, is a false god.

So you think through in your life, when you think of what these false gods are,
what is it that draws you to follow it instead of God? When you find yourself
walking away from obedience to God, from following his direction in your life,
what is it that's drawing you in that direction? It could be a person, some
person in your life, maybe somebody even in your family.

You've made somehow a false god out of them, and you want to blame them for
that. "Oh, they always lead me in the wrong way. " You're the one who's choosing
to go after them, and maybe if you made a different choice, you could lead them
in a different way.

Maybe you're supposed to be leading them instead of them leading you, but you've
made a false god out of them, and you're chasing after their approval. You're
chasing after a feeling of significance that you get from being with this
person. It could be somebody that's in a business community, and because of
that, they're a false god.

That false god has to be let go of if God's going to set you free. It could be a
person. It could be some passion in your life, some habit in your life, some
drug that you take, some drink that you take, something in your life that's
become a habit.

It could even be something good. A false god could be exercise. If I don't
exercise, I don't feel right about myself.

Your whole life—I think you should exercise, by the way—but your whole life
becomes built around this false god of exercise. It could be even good things.
It could be a possession.

It could be something that you own. It could be your house. It could be your
car.

It could be an entertainment. Many times, our false gods are built around our
entertainments. The relaxation that you get from watching a movie or television
or the entertainment value that you get from this sport, whatever it is, it has
become the thing that you have to have in your life.

If you have an opportunity to serve God or watch that game on TV, you just can't
make the choice to serve. You get mad at God because the two things happen at
the same time. What's going on there?

You've got a false god. I'm not saying you should never watch a sport on TV. You
should enjoy those things.

But if you can't enjoy it, when there's an opportunity to serve and make a
difference in somebody else's life, it shows you there's a false god. And God's
going to work to break that chain. To see the chains of Satan broken, you have
to set the false gods aside.

And God is going to work. He's going to work again and again and again to set
aside that which binds you, to set aside that which is keeping you from being
free. God will judge that which is binding you.

Now, although you might believe that you're in control of these things, the
truth of human nature is whatever we trust, whatever we most want, that ends up
controlling us. So I want to trust God, my father. I want to most want Jesus in
my life.

What's binding you? What habit, what thought, what relationship, what sin?
What's binding you?

What possession? When life begins to unravel at the point of what's binding you,
remember, God will judge that which is binding you. When things start to fall
apart around that thing which is binding you, that relationship, that sport,
that entertainment, that habit, when it starts to fall apart, you can get angry
at God and see it as an interference.

"God, why would you take even this away from me? " Or you can worship. You can
see it as God's judgment because He wants to set you free.

That's what He was doing for the Egyptians, those that would listen. That's what
He certainly did for those of Israel, and that's what He wants to do for you.
Let's pray together.

Our Father, we worship You as God. You are almighty. You are eternal.

You are the one who will last. Your character has formed everything that we see
and will last beyond this world when we come to a new heaven and a new earth. We
worship You for who You are, God Almighty, God everlasting, the God of
integrity.

And Lord, we ask that You help us to see those false gods that are binding us.
And instead of getting angry, stubborn, when You work to set them aside, realize
what You're doing. You're working to set us free.

You're not working to take something away from us. You're working to give to us
a deeper and richer relationship with You and a deeper and richer life than we
could ever have through that false god, through that thing that we think we can
control but ends up controlling us. And so right now, we offer ourselves to You,
and we ask that You would work in our lives as only You can, for Your glory.

In Jesus' name, Amen. Tomorrow we're going to see in Moses' life that the battle
with Pharaoh continues.