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What is God up to when the bad gets worse? Here's Pastor Jeff Shreve.
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God has a purpose for us. And when things happen to us, we like it when good things happen. Oh, God, this is all wonderful. Good things are happening to me. But how about when bad things happen but nothing comes into your life?
Nothing comes into my life unless it first filters through God's fingers of love. Things can happen to you, and you can say, "God is picking on me. Why is God picking on me?" He's not picking on you. He's working on you.
So just know God's plan for your life is to bring him glory. That's the only reason that you exist. And people notice. Not in the good times. They notice in the hard times. If your Christianity is real, he can.
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Heal every scar with real truth, real love, real hope from his heart.
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This is from his heart. Heart with Pastor Jeff Shreve, who's taking us through the book of Exodus this month and today.
Message 5 from his series Faithful and True, introducing the one and only God. God brought plagues upon Egypt to make a mockery of their gods and to bring Pharaoh to his knees. The plagues were intensifying in devastation and caused death in Egypt.
Today we'll explore four attributes of God's character that we see exhibited in the seventh, eighth, and ninth plagues. Right now, open your Bible to Exodus, chapter nine if you can, as Pastor Jeff begins describing what happens when bad gets worse.
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We've been talking about the plagues that God brought upon Egypt to make a mockery of their gods and to bring Egypt to its knees and Pharaoh to his knees. The plagues came in triplets. The first plague in the triplet was the Nile turning to blood. We’re through the frogs, we’re through the gnats. The second triplet included the swarms of flies and stinging insects. After the swarms came the pestilence that killed the horses, camels, and livestock in the field. Following that, God instructed Moses to take handfuls of soot and throw it into the sky, resulting in sore boils upon man and beast. Now we start into the last triplet, which begins with the plague of hail, followed by locusts, and then darkness. The 10th plague, the granddaddy of them all, is a separate event that ushers in Passover. The 10th plague is the death angel.
Pharaoh, as these plagues are coming, is thinking, surely we’ve seen the end of these plagues. Surely it’s going to get better now. But it just keeps going from bad to worse. I’ve entitled this message "When Bad Gets Worse" because the plagues that came upon Egypt were intensifying. With the hail, we are about to see a plague that will start killing people. It kills the livestock in the field and the servants working there. While the pestilence killed livestock, the other plagues didn’t kill people; they hurt people. You might get stung by an ichneumon fly or develop boils, which are awful, but now God is starting to cause death in Egypt, and bad is getting worse.
This is how it begins. Exodus, chapter 9, verse 13: "Then the Lord said to Moses, rise up early in the morning and stand before Pharaoh and say to him, thus says the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, let my people go that they may serve me. For this time I will send all my plagues on you and on your servants and your people, so that you may know that there is no one like me in all the earth." What is the purpose that God is bringing about with Pharaoh? That he would know, and the Egyptians would know, and the Hebrews would know that God is the only God.
We’ve entitled this series "Faithful and True." In introducing the one and only God, Pharaoh asked the question early on, "Who is the Lord, who is Yahweh? That I should obey his voice?" God is introducing himself to Pharaoh so that he would know that there is no one like Him in all the earth. Remember, Egypt had a pantheon of gods; they had scores and scores of gods. The plagues that came about were directed at certain gods, often more than one, because they had overlapping deities. God is destroying their pantheon of gods. Pharaoh is king in Egypt, but he’s more than that; he considers himself to be a god. The death angel will be a blow against Pharaoh himself as his own son dies. God is going to show Pharaoh who the one true God is.
He says that you may know that there is no one like me in all the earth. We want to look today at four attributes of God that we see from this last triplet of plagues, so that we would know that there is no one like God in all the earth. Some of us don’t really know that. We know some things about God, but we’re not solid in the truth of His character and attributes. How do I know that? It’s because when bad things happen to you, you begin to question the love of God, the goodness of God, the character and the nature of God. God wants us to know that there is no one like Him in all the earth and to understand these four key attributes.
Attribute number one: God is merciful. You could think that the way God deals with Egypt is cruel, almost like a cat that catches a lizard or some kind of bug and messes with it for a long time before pouncing. We can get the feeling that God is being cruel to Egypt. But He’s not being cruel; He’s being merciful. He’s being patient with Egypt. Look what He says in verse 15: "For if by now I had put forth my hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, you would have been cut off from the earth." Pharaoh, I could have just zapped you just like that. From day one, when I sent Moses to you, I could have said, "Thus says the Lord, let my people go." If you said no, I could have laid you waste right then. But God didn’t do that.
As we read in Scripture, seven times the Lord sent Moses to Pharaoh to say, "Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, let my people go." Seven times he had an opportunity to say yes, but he didn’t. Pharaoh kept hardening his heart. Before the Lord ever began to harden Pharaoh’s heart, God was being merciful to Pharaoh and to the people. When the plague of hail came, it was going to rain hail mixed with fire on the Egyptians, on the livestock in the field, and on any servant left out there. This was an awful plague.
The plague of hail, verse 18: "Behold, about this time tomorrow, I will send a very heavy hail such as has not been seen in Egypt from the day it was founded until now." Notice it says a very heavy hail. That’s a play on words in Hebrew, because the word heavy is related to the word stubborn and hard. Pharaoh’s heart was hardened; it was stubborn. God is saying, "Okay, Pharaoh, your heart is hard. I’m going to send you a very hard plague." Therefore, verse 19: "Send, bring your livestock and whatever you have in the field to safety." God is giving them an opportunity to save their livestock and their slaves. Every man and beast found in the field and not brought home when the hail comes down on them will die.
The one among the servants of Pharaoh who feared the word of the Lord made his servants and livestock flee into the houses. But he who paid no regard to the word of the Lord left his servants and livestock in the field. Now the Lord said to Moses, "Stretch out your hand toward the sky that hail may fall on the land of Egypt, on man and on beast, and on every plant of the field throughout the land of Egypt." Moses stretched out his staff toward the sky. Remember, the sky god of Egypt was a goddess named Nut (N-U-T). She’s not going to be able to do much against this plague. The Lord sent thunder and hail, and fire ran down to the earth. The Lord rained hail on the land of Egypt, so there was hail and fire flashing continually in the midst of the hail, very severe, such as had not been in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation. The hail struck all that was in the field throughout all the land of Egypt, both man and beast. The hail also struck every plant of the field and shattered every tree of the field. In the land of Goshen, where the sons of Israel were, there was no hail.
God is merciful. He is patient with the Egyptians. He tells them this is going to happen in 24 hours, giving them time to get their livestock and servants to safety. Habakkuk 3:2 says, "In wrath, remember mercy." And God does. Even in wrath, we read in the book of Joshua that the Lord sends the people in to attack Jericho and destroy that fortified city. There’s one lady in Jericho who has faith; her name is Rahab. She responds to the word of the Lord and cries out for mercy. God sees to it that Rahab and all who are in her household are spared from judgment. God is a merciful God, and He’s a patient God.
If you had been God, or if I had been God, we wouldn’t have given Pharaoh chance after chance after chance. We would have said, "Hey, you got one chance, pal. If you don’t respond, you’re toast." But God is not like us. He is very patient and merciful. It’s good to remember that when you pray because you mess up in life, and I mess up in life. When we mess up, the devil moves in and says to you and me, "God won’t forgive you for that. You’ve crossed the line with God. You’ve committed that sin too many times. There’s no way, there’s no hope for you." Here’s what the Scripture says in Hebrews 4:15: "For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are yet without sin. Therefore, let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and may find grace to help in time of need." You need mercy because you’ve messed up in life. You can come boldly before the throne of grace. God sits on a throne of grace. He has grace for His children. He has mercy for His children. We have a high priest who says, "I can sympathize with you. I don’t whitewash what you did. I know what you did was sin. But I can sympathize with you because I’ve been tempted in those areas just like you. So come to me and receive mercy and find grace to help in your time of need." God is merciful. That’s the first attribute we see.
Secondly, God is purposeful. God has a purpose in everything He does. He is not willy-nilly; He is not just flying off the handle, shooting from the hip. God is the God who declares the end from the beginning. He knows everything. He sees it all. He knows everything about your life from the time you were born until the time you die. God sees all that. He declares the end from the beginning, and He has a purpose in everything He does. All these plagues are strategic. They are hitting particular gods. As I told you, Egypt had scores of false gods. The hail goes against the nut goddess, the sky goddess. Seth and Isis are gods over the crops, and they’re not doing too well with the hail mixed with fire. Shu, the god of the atmosphere, is also not doing well with the atmospheric conditions. God is showing that their gods mean nothing; they can’t do anything.
Plague number eight, the locusts, targeted Serapia, the god that controlled locusts and protected the land from them. He got an F for his efforts against the real God. Nepri was the god of grain, and he didn’t do well with the plague of hail and locusts. Then darkness comes, and Ra is the god of the sun. We have that name, Amon Ra, which is related to Ra, another name for Ra. Thoth is the god of the moon. But during plague number nine, there will be no light. God is very strategic in what He’s doing; He’s not haphazard at all. He’s showing the Egyptians, the Israelites, and the surrounding nations that He is God.
Look what He says in verse 15: "For if by now I had put forth my hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, you would then have been cut off from the earth. But indeed for this cause I have allowed you to remain in order to show you my power and in order to proclaim my name through all the earth." That verse, Exodus 9:16, is quoted by Paul in Romans 9:17: "For this reason I raised you up, Pharaoh, to show my power throughout the earth." If God had just wiped out Pharaoh from day one, it would have shown that God has power, but it wouldn’t have resonated with the nations the way He did it.
Skip Heitzig brings up an interesting point: how long did all these plagues last? From the first plague, the Nile turning to blood, until the death angel, how long was that? The Bible doesn’t exactly say, but it gives us insight. The Lord says to Moses, "Israel is my firstborn." Israel is going to come out of the land of Egypt and become a nation. They weren’t really a nation before; they were just the children of Israel. Israel is Jacob, and God changed Jacob’s name to Israel. So when we talk about the children of Israel, it’s just the descendants of Jacob. But now Israel is going to become a nation, and they are going to come out of Egypt and be born again, so to speak, and settle in the promised land. That is the plan.
How long does it take for someone to be born? Nine months. If you look at it from that standpoint, nine months’ worth of plagues means news gets around about what is going on in Egypt. Egypt is the most powerful country in the world, and those other nations are talking about what they’re hearing after plague number three. After the water turned to blood, the frogs, and the gnats, the magicians tell Pharaoh, "This is the finger of God." After the hail, they tell Pharaoh, "Do you not realize Egypt is destroyed?" They still have locusts, darkness, and the death angel to come, but after the hail, they said, "It’s all wrecked, it’s ruined, it’s destroyed." People hear about that. Rahab the harlot said to the spies, "Where have you guys been? We heard about what your God did to Egypt." God allowed that for months because He wanted word to get out, because He raised up Pharaoh in order to show His power and proclaim His name through all the earth. God has a purpose.
The same is true for your life and my life. God has a purpose for us. When things happen to us, we like it when good things happen. "Oh God, this is all wonderful!" But how about when bad things happen? We don’t like the bad things. Nothing comes into your life or my life unless it first filters through God’s fingers of love. God allows those things to come in so that He can show to the world—whether it’s your neighborhood, the people at your office, or the people at your school—that you love God, you trust God, and even when hard times come, you’re walking with God. You’re trusting God and saying, "With Jehoshaphat, we don’t know what to do, but our eyes are on you."
Things can happen to you, and you might say, "God is picking on me. Why is God picking on me?" He’s not picking on you; He’s working on you. There’s a big difference. Just know that God’s plan for your life is to bring Him glory. That’s the only reason you exist. That’s why He created you. Isaiah 43:7 says He created us for His glory. Paul said, "Whether then you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God," because that’s why you were created. People notice not in the good times; they notice in the hard times. If your Christianity is real, who can’t praise the Lord when everything is going good? Who can’t praise the Lord if you say, "Hey, I won the sweepstakes; they’re coming to my house with a big fat check for a million dollars"? Isn’t that wonderful? Isn’t it great to be a Christian? The person might say, "Well, yeah, I’d be praising God too if I got a million dollars."
But how about when you get sick? How about when you’re in the hospital? How about when you lose a loved one? Now let’s see what you do. You have a choice: you can follow the advice of Job’s wife, "Curse God and die," or you can follow the footsteps of Job and say, "Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall return there. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord."
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Has your life been filled with heartache and heartbreak? Have you had and then lost? Lots to learn in this lesson called "When Bad Gets Worse." It's just one of eight messages in Pastor Jeff's study of the Book of Exodus called "Faithful and True: Introducing the One and Only God." This lesson today and the entire series is important for the world to hear. We do that every day on radio and television in 182 countries each week, and always online.
Since our founding in 2005, God has done so much more than we could have ever imagined and led you and others to partner with us along the way during this exciting journey. If you are a supporter from His Heart, we thank you this month, as is every month, an important one as we build on the support we receive from our listeners to take advantage of other broadcast expansion opportunities.
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For your gift today, we'd like to say thank you by sending you Pastor Jeff's inspiring study of the Book of Exodus, an eight-message series called "Faithful and True: Introducing the One and Only God." It includes today's lesson, "When Bad Gets Worse: Part One." We'll have part two of this message tomorrow, and you can help us share that message around the world with your generous support.
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Time is gone for now. I'm Larry Nobles, hoping that you'll be able to join us tomorrow for part two of this lesson, "When Bad Gets Worse." Join us on Friday when we'll again open up God's Word and share real truth, real love, and real hope from His Heart.
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There is tremendous truth. There is hope that you always dream of. We can heal.
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From His Heart is the Listener Supported Broadcast Ministry of Dr. Jeff Shreve, speaking the truth in love to a lost and a hurting world.
Remember that no matter what, God loves you and He has a wonderful plan for your life.
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