Exiting Egypt Chapter 7 P4

Exiting Egypt

“God’s Purposes Behind the Plagues”

Exodus 6:28 – 7:13

By Dennis Lee: Chapter 7 P4

Read Ex. 7:8-13

God loves the world, so much that He gave His only begotten Son, so that through Jesus everyone who believes shall be saved and shall not perish. And since God does not change,

He also loved the Egyptians. God didn’t want them to perish, but to know Him, which is our second point as to why the plagues.

But for now, God wanted to give them every opportunity to repent, to turn, which is what this passage is all about. God wanted to give Pharaoh one last chance to repent and to free God’s people, one last warning shot, so to speak, before He launched His judgments, his plagues upon the nation.

This was the first of three signs God told Moses to perform back at the burning bush, which was Moses’ rod being cast to the ground and it being turned into a serpent. The purpose was to show God’s sovereignty over Pharaoh.

On Pharaoh’s crown was a snake, and it was through by the Egyptians to possess divine or magical powers. So, this was a throw down: God authority over Pharaoh’s.

Pharaoh then calls upon his guys, the wise men (they were the educated and trained politicians of that day), the sorcerers (they practiced witchcraft, the occult, and the casting of spells), and the magicians (they used trickery and the occult, and the word is used in reference to sorcery).

These guys seemingly duplicate the sign. Paul in the New Testament quotes from Jewish tradition and names them Jannes and Jambres (2 Tim. 3:8).

Did they really duplicate the miracle? What we will see is that the magicians also duplicated the miracle of water to blood and brought up frogs from the Nile through their enchantments (magic, or secret incantations; some refer to it as the secret arts). But when it got to the lice, they said, “This can only be the finger of God.”

And so, can people perform false signs and wonders. Jesus said,

For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect (Mt. 24:24 NKJV)

Let me just say that there are powers of darkness that are able to counterfeit the work of God. Satan himself is a great counterfeiter, and therefore so are those who are His, transforming themselves into minister’s of righteousness to deceive.

And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works (2 Cor. 11:14-15 NKJV)

You even have the False Prophet doing just this and more during the time of Revelation deceiving the world into worshipping the Antichrist.

Then the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who worked signs in his presence, by which he deceived those who received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image. These two were cast alive into the lake of fire burning with brimstone (Rev. 19:20 NKJV)

Satan is able to counterfeit some of God’s work, but that doesn’t de-legitimatize God’s miracles. A counterfeit doesn’t disprove the genuine, rather it confirms that there is a genuine, otherwise it wouldn’t be a counterfeit.

Therefore, we shouldn’t be ignorant that such counterfeits exist. There are feats of magic that I believe that are more than just slight of hand. And so I believe that they were able to throw down their rods and that they became serpents. I am told that the deeper you go into magic and sorcery that you will find the book of Moses and the book of the magic of Egypt.

But, God revealed his Sovereignty when Moses’ rod turn snake swallowed whole the two rods turned into snakes of the Egyptian magicians.

Charles Spurgeon said,

“This incident is an instructive emblem of the sure victory of the divine handiwork over all opposition. Whenever a divine principle is cast into the heart, though the devil may fashion a counterfeit, and produce swarms of opponents, as sure as ever God is in the work, it will swallow up all its foes. If God’s grace takes possession of a man, the world’s magicians may throw down all their rods; and every rod may be as cunning and poisonous as a serpent, but Aaron’s rod will swallow up their rods.

“What multitudes of foes has our faith had to meet! Our old sins—the devil threw them down before us, and they turned to serpents. What hosts of them! Ah, but the cross of Jesus destroys them all. Faith in Christ makes short work of all our sins. Then the devil has launched forth another host of serpents in the form of worldly trials, temptations, unbelief; but faith in Jesus is more than a match for them, and overcomes them all.

One last thing before we end, and that is the fact of what God told to Moses at the end, basically it was, “I told you so.” Verse 13 says, “And Pharaoh’s heart grew hard, and he did not heed them, as the Lord had said,”

God is even sovereign in foreknowledge. This is what it means to be Omniscient, or all knowing. God knew Pharaoh’s response before Pharaoh gave it. He knows that Pharaoh will demand to see a miracle and therefore He gives a miracle for Moses to display ahead of time. And He knows that Pharaoh will reject the miracle and message and told Moses just that ahead of time.

And so, God is sovereign. God is sovereign over all those things that are arrayed against us and against our relationship with Him, and will swallow them up, one way or another.