Sermon Central
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How Long Will It Be Before You Question Plagues In Your Life Series
Contributed by Bruce Landry on Sep 21, 2002 (message contributor)
Summary: Just as Pharaoh and the Nation of Egypt sought to reduce or stop the plagues with compromises to God’s perfect plan, so do many in our churches today. Let us walk with Moses and Aaron and take to heart the lessons presented today.
How Long will it be before You question Plagues in Your life
Locusts and questions
Darkness for compromise
DBF/Exodus 10/Sept 22, 2002
Do you ever question why certain things happen in this world, in communities and villages around you?
With the various things of darkness surrounding us, I sometimes wonder why people in the communities don’t question these things more often?
Why don’t our communities confront drug dealers, alcohol importer or people who let intoxicated people go out of their homes or businesses and kill themselves or others?
The simplest reason I guess is that they would not want others pointing out things they do that they know is not right.
I am reminded of a story in which a couple of guys where fishing down a river one day.
One looked up and could see a baby crying and splashing as it floated down the river. The man of course ran in and plucked the baby from that terrible situation. Immediately he heard another baby screaming, looked up and saw another one floating down river. He handed the first child to his friend and waded in after the second. He returned to the bank and was thinking how could this be happening.
He couldn’t wonder very long because he shortly heard another scream and returned to the river to get the next baby, handing each successively to his friend who handed them to another person nearby.
That is pretty much the way I see Satan tying up our lives. He hits us with things that consume our time and efforts to keep us from seeing and doing the word of God.
These people would never get to the root of the problem by staying downstream, they would only be involved in taking actions after the problem presented itself.
God calls us to look to him for the truth, and to examine every situation. In the above situation God would call us to venture upriver, stop whoever is throwing the babies in to start with, then pray that they might come to a point in their lives that they accept their sinfulness and repent of it, turn from their evil past, and seek the path of Christ in their lives.
Today let us continue our journey with Moses and Aaron through the path of plagues that are being brought against the nation of Egypt because of Pharaoh’s refusal to “Let God’s People go.”
Locusts and questions
1And the LORD said unto Moses, Go in unto Pharaoh: for I have hardened his heart, and the heart of his servants, that I might show these my signs before him: 2And that thou mayest tell in the ears of thy son, and of thy son’s son, what things I have wrought in Egypt, and my signs which I have done among them; that ye may know how that I am the LORD. 3And Moses and Aaron came in unto Pharaoh, and said unto him, Thus saith the LORD God of the Hebrews, How long wilt thou refuse to humble thyself before me? let my people go, that they may serve me. 4Else, if thou refuse to let my people go, behold, to morrow will I bring the locusts into thy coast: 5And they shall cover the face of the earth, that one cannot be able to see the earth: and they shall eat the residue of that which is escaped, which remaineth unto you from the hail, and shall eat every tree which groweth for you out of the field: 6And they shall fill thy houses, and the houses of all thy servants, and the houses of all the Egyptians; which neither thy fathers, nor thy fathers’ fathers have seen, since the day that they were upon the earth unto this day. And he turned himself, and went out from Pharaoh. 7And Pharaoh’s servants said unto him, How long shall this man be a snare unto us? let the men go, that they may serve the LORD their God: knowest thou not yet that Egypt is destroyed? 8And Moses and Aaron were brought again unto Pharaoh: and he said unto them, Go, serve the LORD your God: but who are they that shall go? 9And Moses said, We will go with our young and with our old, with our sons and with our daughters, with our flocks and with our herds will we go; for we must hold a feast unto the LORD. 10And he said unto them, Let the LORD be so with you, as I will let you go, and your little ones: look to it; for evil is before you. 11Not so: go now ye that are men, and serve the LORD; for that ye did desire. And they were driven out from Pharaoh’s presence.
12And the LORD said unto Moses, Stretch out thine hand over the land of Egypt for the locusts, that they may come up upon the land of Egypt, and eat every herb of the land, even all that the hail hath left. 13And Moses stretched forth his rod over the land of Egypt, and the LORD brought an east wind upon the land all that day, and all that night; and when it was morning, the east wind brought the locusts. 14And the locusts went up over all the land of Egypt, and rested in all the coasts of Egypt: very grievous were they; before them there were no such locusts as they, neither after them shall be such. 15For they covered the face of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened; and they did eat every herb of the land, and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had left: and there remained not any green thing in the trees, or in the herbs of the field, through all the land of Egypt. 16Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron in haste; and he said, I have sinned against the LORD your God, and against you. 17Now therefore forgive, I pray thee, my sin only this once, and entreat the LORD your God, that he may take away from me this death only. 18And he went out from Pharaoh, and entreated the LORD. 19And the LORD turned a mighty strong west wind, which took away the locusts, and cast them into the Red sea; there remained not one locust in all the coasts of Egypt. 20But the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart, so that he would not let the children of Israel go.
