Who Do You Rely Upon?
Exodus 7:14-25
- We’re continuing our study through the book of Exodus.
- Last week, we looked at some of the reasons why God is the source of our boldness.
- We saw that God knows everything, when He told Moses exactly how Pharaoh was going to respond.
- We saw that God can do anything, when He turned the rod of Aaron into a serpent.
- And we saw that God is greater than the world, when God’s serpent ate the magician’s serpents.
- This week, we’re looking at one of the false gods that the Egyptians relied upon and some of the ways in which they relied on him.
- I’m reminded of a time years ago when I worked for the Career Center in Machias.
- I was part of a program that matched youth in our area with difference jobs in the area.
- The Career Center paid their wages through a grant, and in exchange, the employers taught them job skills and training.
- I was one of the supervisors who had to visit these youth at their worksites, and sometimes, I’d have to drive from one part of Washington County all the way to the other part.
- We had a group of kids working at the school in Danforth, helping out with maintenance and janitorial duties.
- One of those kids was very disrespectful to me, so I didn’t really like dealing with him, but it was part of my job.
- One day, he didn’t show up for work.
- He didn’t call in sick, or let anyone know where he was going to be that day, so of course it caught my attention.
- I asked the other kids if they knew where he was, and they told me he had been out drinking and partying the night before, so he was probably passed out somewhere.
- So I tried calling him several times, and finally got ahold of him.
- I asked him why he wasn’t at work, and he said he was sick.
- Then, I asked him if it was true he was out partying, and he hesitatingly told me yes.
- Well, I was angry, so I gave him what-for over the phone, and I fired him.
- I hung up and felt a lot better.
- When I got back to the office, my boss pulled me into her office and said, “Bobby, what did you just do?”
- I went on to explain to her what happened, thinking she’d support my decision…
- Instead, she proceeded to chew me out for firing him without first speaking to her.
- Turns out, I didn’t actually have the authority to fire anyone.
- So she ordered me to call him back and apologize, then re-hire him…
- Boy was I embarrassed!
- The reason I tell you that story is because on that day, I took matters into my own hands and was relying on myself and my “position of authority”, but I should have been relying on my boss and her expertise in dealing with difficult kids.
- So I was relying on the wrong person.
- And that’s where we find Pharaoh and the Egyptians here today, relying on the wrong thing, a false god that had no power!
- So let’s look at 3 areas where they relied on the wrong thing.
I.) They relied on the Nile for religion- Vs 14-17
- When I was a young child, about 6 or 7, one of my fears was that a vampire was going to come in the middle of the night and bite my neck.
- I guess I was watching too many horror-shows or something.
- So every night when I went to bed, I’d take my blanket and completely cover myself so that no part of my body was exposed.
- It didn’t matter if it was scorching hot, I still put that blanket over my head and laid like that until I went to sleep.
- I even remember one of the blankets of mine was a superman blanket, and I must have thought that would scare a vampire away or something.
- Anyways, obviously, vampires aren’t real, but if they were, that blanket wouldn’t have done me any good for protection.
- False religion is kind of like that…
- A person covers themselves over with it, relying on it to save them and protect them, but, in reality, it doesn’t do any good.
- Pharaoh and Egypt relied a lot on religion, on all their false gods, and they were all about to prove useless against the One True God.
- In vs 15, God tells Moses and Aaron that Pharaoh will be going down to the water in the morning.
- It’s possible that he was going down to the Nile to bathe.
- However, it seems to be more likely that he went down to the river to perform an act of worship or some kind of religious ceremony.
- According to the Greek Biographer Plutarch “…nothing is in greater honor among the Egyptians than the river Nile.”
- So to the Egyptians, the Nile River was sacred.
- And to them, there were a lot of deities who kept it flowing.
- One of those gods was named Hapi, the god of the Nile, and he was considered by Ancient Egyptians to be one of the most popular and powerful gods in their land.
- They believed that he was the source of the water flowing in the Nile.
- I’ll talk a little more about what they believed he did, but the fact is that they relied on him, believing that he had power over the Nile River.
- Along with him, they worshipped a god named Khnum, who was a ram god, and they considered him to be a guardian of the Nile River, and other water sources.
- So instead of being thankful to the One True God for providing water in their land where it didn’t rain very much, the Egyptians instead followed false gods…
- They were relying on their religion and giving honor and glory to false gods instead of God Almighty who deserved their worship.
- And Pharaoh, as their leader, officiated ceremonies celebrating the blessings these false river-gods supposedly brought to Egypt.
- As a matter of fact, according to Adam Clarke, “Some of the ancient Jews supposed that Pharaoh himself was a magician, and that he walked by the river early each morning for the purpose of preparing magical rites…”
- So, it makes sense that he would go down to the river every day and perform some kind of religious rites, but they were meaningless rituals, and God was about to prove it to Egypt.
- In the next part of vs 15, God tells Moses and Aaron to meet Pharaoh at the riverbank and bring him a message.
- The reason they would be meeting him in the morning at the riverbank is because God was going to stop Pharaoh dead in his tracks…
- Instead of performing an act of worship for his beloved Nile River, Pharaoh was going to see the One True God smash his religious beliefs into smithereens.
- In vs 16, God says to Pharaoh, “Indeed, until now, you would not hear!” and in vs 17, “By this you shall know that I am the Lord!”
- So God is making it perfectly clear to Pharaoh and all of Egypt that they had their chance, and now, God’s going to show them the hard way that He is God, and the Children of Israel are His people!
- Now let’s think for a moment about the problem of religion in our own day.
- For curiosities sake, I googled “How many religions are there in our world?”
- The answer is a rather large estimate...there are over 4,200 religions in the world!
- That’s a lot of religion!
- Why so much?
- It’s because Satan is a deceiver, and he’s created all those religions so that people will worship what they want, or who they want, and point them away from the One True God.
- In John 8, Jesus tells us, “[Satan] was a murderer from the beginning, and stayed not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.”
- Sadly, just like he had the ancient Egyptians fooled, he has a lot of people in our world today fooled.
- Some religions teach that if your good outweighs your bad, then you’ll have nothing to worry about when you die.
- Some religions teach that you have to do certain things in order to earn your way to Heaven.
- Some religions teach that you can believe whatever or whoever you want.
- Our world is full of religion.
- Sadly, we even find religion in many Evangelical Churches today.
- People are taught to do follow certain rules in order to be considered a “good Christian.”
- People are taught that it doesn’t matter how you live your life, that in the end, God will let you into Heaven because of His love.
- I don’t know how many times I’ve been told, “Hey Bobby, there’s grace, so you don’t have to worry about living a holy life for the Lord. You don’t have to be obedient to God’s Word. Nobody’s perfect, so you might as well enjoy life while it lasts. God doesn’t mind.”
- That’s false grace right there…
- The Apostle Paul said, “Should I keep sinning because there’s grace? God forbid!”
- Sadly, so many people in our world are relying upon religion to get them to Heaven or some better place when they die.
- I was just talking with a gentleman the other day who told me that he prays every night to whatever gods are out there listening.
- How sad to live in such confusion, and yet be relying upon the unknown…
- That reminds me of when the Apostle Paul was in Athens in Acts 17, standing in the Areopagus and saw the altar with the inscription, “To the unknown God.”
- The Apostle Paul was able to tell them who the unknown God was, Jesus Christ, who could be known!
- So many people today are worshipping the unknown God, relying on religion.
- And that’s why Scripture talks so much about sharing the love of Christ with all who will listen.
- People know they need something to fill the empty void inside, and Jesus is the answer!
II.) They relied on the Nile for food and water- Vs 18
- I’m going to admit something to you, this morning.
- I learned early in life that I love food!
- And because I love food, sometimes I tend to eat just a bit too much.
- I’ve actually heard that’s a requirement for being a Baptist preacher, is to have a big appetite and a preacher’s belly!
- When I was a kid, I quickly learned that I had to rely on my parents to feed me, otherwise I’d starve.
- I was a child, so I couldn’t get a job and earn my own money.
- Since I couldn’t earn my own money, I couldn’t go buy food.
- I couldn’t create food out of nothing.
- I couldn’t just go to a store or a restaurant and take food because food isn’t free.
- No, I relied on my parents to provide food and water so that I could be healthy and grow.
- If I didn’t have them providing for me, I’d starve!
- The people of Egypt were in a similar situation…
- They relied on the Nile River for their food and water.
- Here in vs 18, we’re told that the fish in the river will die, the river will stink, and the Egyptians will loathe to drink the water of the river.
- That’s a big problem because the Nile River possessed an abundant amount of fish, so those fish were a major source of food for the Egyptians.
- One of the things that’s interesting is that one of the goddesses the Egyptians worshipped was Hatmehyt.
- Hatmehyt was a fish-goddess, and her name was translated, “she who is in front of the fishes.”
- They considered her to be a deification of the Nile River.
- So it’s fascinating, when you look at God changing the river to blood, and all those fish dying…
- Those of the Egyptians who worshipped her would be scratching their heads, wondering why she didn’t stop it from happening!
- After all, she was the fish-goddess…she even had a fish’s head!
- So one of the Egyptian’s sources of food was wiped out, floating dead and stinky in the river that she supposedly protected.
- God was showing the Egyptians that their gods had no power and were nothing!
- Not only that, but the Egyptians could no longer drink the water of the Nile.
- That’s no small thing because obviously, we need water to live, especially if you live in the hot deserts of Egypt!
- But the water of the Nile was especially delicious.
- According to Abbe Mascrier, a French clergyman in the 1700’s who visited and wrote a book about Egypt…
- “The water of Egypt is so delicious, that one would not wish the heat to be less, or to be delivered from the sensation of thirst. The Turks find it so exquisite that they excite themselves to drink of it by eating salt. It is a common saying among them that if Mohammed had drank of it, he would have besought God that he might never die, in order to have had this continual gratification…there is no gratification to be compared to this; it surpasses, in their esteem, that of seeing their relations and families.”
- He further explained, “…their well water is detestable and unwholesome. Fountains are so rare that they are a kind of prodigy in that country; and as to rain water, that is out of the question, as scarcely any falls in Egypt.”
- So as you can see, when the Bible says, “…the Egyptians shall loathe to drink of the water of the river…”, that’s no small thing!
- To go from drinking such delicious, perfect water to running about, trying to find water, wearying themselves to find water from even the sources they detested is quite desperate.
- What about you and me?
- We’re very blessed to live in America where we have an abundance of food supply.
- Restaurants and grocery stores are everywhere.
- There’s plenty of food for all of us to eat 3 meals a day, and even snacks in-between, or for those of us with a sweet-tooth, to spoil ourselves with sweets.
- I don’t know about you, but I love food.
- Yet as I was preparing this, I thought of Jesus when He was in the wilderness.
- After 40 days of fasting, Jesus was hungry…
- I’m sure He was starving!
- Satan tried to take advantage of the situation by going to Him and saying, “If You are the Son of God, take this rock and turn it into a loaf of bread.”
- Obviously, Jesus had the power to do it, and He could have if He wanted to.
- Instead, Jesus said, “It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”
- Why didn’t He turn the rocks into bread?
- After all, later when He is teaching over 5000 people, He multiplies the bread and fish for the multitude, so it wasn’t a sin for Him to use His Power to create bread from nothing.
- The problem is that Satan was tempting Jesus to use His Gifts for His own selfish purposes.
- In order to live as one of us, He had to deal with normal cravings, such as hunger…
- You and I can’t go around making rocks turn into bread when we’re hungry, so even though Jesus could have done that, doing so would have been for selfish reasons…
- He would eat when it was the Father’s timing.
- You and I should be more like Jesus when it comes to our hunger.
- Is it a sin to eat? Of course not.
- But if you’ve decided to fast for a certain amount of days, obviously, you’re going to be hungry, and that temptation to give in and eat will be there.
- If you give in and eat, then you’ve just ruined your fast, and you’re telling God that food was more important than whatever it was you were praying for.
- You relied on food to get you through instead of God.
- Or what about gluttony?
- Food is great, but when we eat for pleasure rather than to satisfy our hunger, that’s a problem.
- Eating with our eyes instead of our stomachs is a huge problem in America today.
- That’s why there are so many obese people.
- If food is a god in our lives, that’s a problem.
- You’re relying on food for satisfaction instead of God.
- Years ago, I was going through a really tough time when I came back from Iraq.
- There were a few times that I turned to food for comfort…
- I remember buying a large meat lovers pizza and eating the whole thing by myself in 1 night, along with some whoopie pies and Mountain Dew.
- I relied on that food to comfort me instead of God.
- Obviously, there’s nothing wrong with food, but if you’re here today, relying on food instead of God, ask Him to help you change that.
III.) They relied on the Nile for livelihood- Vs 19-25
- I live over in Woodland.
- Years ago, the Paper mill was thriving and there were a lot more people in town.
- I was told that there were so many members over at Woodland Baptist Church that they had to have 2 services in the morning…that’s a lot of people!
- Sadly, one day, the mill closed down, and all those men and women lost their jobs.
- Well of course they needed to find employment somewhere, so many of those people moved away.
- The economic impact on the area was obviously huge.
- Today, the mill is running once again, not as huge as it used to be, but big enough to provide a lot of jobs in our area and help the local economy.
- So I think you could ask anyone who lives in Woodland, “Do you rely upon that mill to keep this town going?”, and the answer would be, “Yes.”
- If the mill ever shuts down completely again, our area is going to have a really tough time!
- Obviously, when a town or State or a nation depends on something for their livelihood, it’s a big deal if something happens that impacts it.
- And that’s where we find the Egyptians here with the first plague…
- Their lives are hugely impacted in a negative way because they relied on the Nile River for their livelihood!
- In July and August, the Nile River flooded its banks and the water from the flood caused the soil to be rich.
- When it became rich, the Egyptians were able to grow successful crops.
- They gave their gods praise for this.
- One of their acts of worship for the Nile was to sing hymns, praising the river for its bountiful supply of water.
- Another was to yearly sacrifice a boy and a girl to the river, in gratitude for the benefits they received from the river.
- With the river turned into actual blood, they wouldn’t have that rich soil to grow their crops in.
- Their agriculture and their economy were completely devastated by this!
- So God was showing them that the Nile River was not a god, and the Nile gods the Egyptians worshipped were not real and had no power to stop God from sending this plague.
- I believe God has a sense of humor as well, because one of the things the Egyptians believed was that the Nile River came from the bloodstream of their god Osiris.
- Every year, when the Nile flooded, it was the miraculous rebirth of Osiris, who was a god of earth and vegetation.
- So God turned Osiris’ supposed bloodstream, the Nile, into literal blood!
- “You want blood, you’ve got it!”
- There may have been another reason why God turned the water into blood.
- Remember when Moses was born, and Pharaoh ordered all the male babies to be drowned in the Nile River?
- The blood of those babies was on the Egyptians hands.
- Now, the very river where they killed those babies, babies that were children of Israel, Covenant children, that very same river that the Egyptians relied upon for their livelihood was not undrinkable and unusable!
- Now, some people who don’t believe the Bible would say, “Well it wasn’t actual blood. It was some bacteria or algae that was red like blood, but it wasn’t literal blood.”
- Well, for one thing, that wouldn’t have killed all the fish, and for another, that wouldn’t explain the buckets of wood and stone that were filled with water from the Nile that became blood as well…
- Some might say, “Well, the Bible says it happened, but nowhere else is it recorded.”
- Actually, that’s wrong.
- The Egyptians did keep a record of this event.
- David Guzik says, “There is a significant mention of something like this in a papyrus from this general period known as the Ipuwer Papyrus. It actually says (Ipuwer 2.10) that the Nile was blood and undrinkable. The same papyrus repeatedly mentions that servants left their masters.” (referring to the Israelites)
- I love how archaeology proves the Bible over and over and over again!
- So, with no water to drink, no fish to eat, no rich soil to grow their crops in, the Egyptians were in a pretty bad place, and this is only the first plague!
- You’d think that would have been enough for Pharaoh, but he was a stubborn man.
- Vs 22 says that the magicians did the same thing with their enchantments.
- Well, I don’t doubt that they did use demonic power to turn some water into blood…
- But they couldn’t turn a whole river into blood, and if they had this power, then why couldn’t they go out and reverse it, turning the Nile back into regular water?
- So, what was the impact of this first plague?
- Well, of course it greatly devastated their economy.
- On top of that, the Jewish philosopher Philo tells us that many of the Egyptians died because of this plague.
- And the plague lasted 7 days, which is a long time to go without water and to breathe in the stench of dead and rotting fish and bloody water.
- So what about you and me today?
- Are there times when we rely on things for our livelihood?
- Absolutely!
- If we didn’t then none of us would have food to eat, or a roof over our heads, or clothes to wear…
- We wouldn’t be able to take care of our families, we wouldn’t be able to pay bills, and the list goes on and on…
- Obviously, all of us depend on things for our livelihoods…
- Salaries from our jobs, retirement funds, Social security…
- We all need money to live our lives.
- The problems come when we make it our goal in life to put our livelihood first and foremost in our lives, at all costs, even when that means putting God on the back burner.
- So if that means lying and cheating someone so that you make a lot of money, that’s a problem…
- Or if you decide work is more important than church, and purposely, on your own, choose to work extra and neglect assembling together with brothers and sisters in Christ.
- Or how about when all your time, energy, and love goes into your work, and your interests, and God is left out?
- We could go on and on with examples.
- Are you relying on someone or something other than God for your livelihood?
- In closing, I encourage you to ask yourself, “Who am I relying upon?”
- Consider the areas of your life where you’re not currently relying on God, and make it a point to give those areas over to Him.
- There’s a popular acronym out there… F.R.O.G….Fully Rely On God!
- It’s good to ask yourself that regularly…am I fully relying on God?
- Many of us have Proverbs 3:5-6 memorized… “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths!”
- How about Philippians 4:9… “My God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.”
- Rely on God, brothers and sisters.
- He’s all You need.
- Let’s pray.
