In this passage, we see a clash of world views as Pharaoh is commanded to release the Israelites. When he refuses, the first of the ten plagues befalls Egypt. Pharaoh was viewed as a quasi-divine person in Egypt, but we see he’s no match for the Lord, nor are the Egyptian pantheon a match for the Lord’s plagues which shows his dominion over nature and over life and death.

Sermon manuscript

And the Lord said to Moses, “See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron shall be your prophet. ² You shall speak all that I command you, and your brother Aaron shall tell Pharaoh to let the people of Israel go out of his land. ³ But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, ⁴ Pharaoh will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and bring my hosts, my people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great acts of judgment. 

⁵ The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from among them.” ⁶ Moses and Aaron did so; they did just as the Lord commanded them. ⁷ Now Moses was eighty years old, and Aaron eighty-three years old, when they spoke to Pharaoh. 

⁸ Then the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, ⁹ “When Pharaoh says to you, ‘Prove yourselves by working a miracle,’ then you shall say to Aaron, ‘Take your staff and cast it down before Pharaoh, that it may become a serpent.’ ” ¹⁰ So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just as the Lord commanded. Aaron cast down his staff before Pharaoh and his servants, and it became a serpent. 

¹¹ Then Pharaoh summoned the wise men and the sorcerers, and they, the magicians of Egypt, also did the same by their secret arts. ¹² For each man cast down his staff, and they became serpents. But Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs. ¹³ Still Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he would not listen to them, as the Lord had said. 

¹⁴ Then the Lord said to Moses, “Pharaoh’s heart is hardened; he refuses to let the people go. ¹⁵ Go to Pharaoh in the morning, as he is going out to the water. Stand on the bank of the Nile to meet him, and take in your hand the staff that turned into a serpent. ¹⁶ And you shall say to him, ‘The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, sent me to you, saying, “Let my people go, that they may serve me in the wilderness.” But so far, you have not obeyed. ¹⁷ Thus says the Lord, “By this you shall know that I am the Lord: behold, with the staff that is in my hand I will strike the water that is in the Nile, and it shall turn into blood. 

¹⁸ The fish in the Nile shall die, and the Nile will stink, and the Egyptians will grow weary of drinking water from the Nile.” ’ ” ¹⁹ And the Lord said to Moses, “Say to Aaron, ‘Take your staff and stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt, over their rivers, their canals, and their ponds, and all their pools of water, so that they may become blood, and there shall be blood throughout all the land of Egypt, even in vessels of wood and in vessels of stone.’ ” 

²⁰ Moses and Aaron did as the Lord commanded. In the sight of Pharaoh and in the sight of his servants he lifted up the staff and struck the water in the Nile, and all the water in the Nile turned into blood. ²¹ And the fish in the Nile died, and the Nile stank, so that the Egyptians could not drink water from the Nile. There was blood throughout all the land of Egypt. ²² But the magicians of Egypt did the same by their secret arts. So Pharaoh’s heart remained hardened, and he would not listen to them, as the Lord had said. ²³ Pharaoh turned and went into his house, and he did not take even this to heart. ²⁴ And all the Egyptians dug along the Nile for water to drink, for they could not drink the water of the Nile. 

Prayer 

¹⁴ Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart 

be acceptable in your sight, 

O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. 

Introduction – series context 

We’re continuing in Exodus this morning. Once again, taking a break from the Gospel of John for a few weeks. 

Last week, we began our study and talked about the opening chapters of Exodus. That the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt but with a rapidly growing population, the Egyptians had made attempts to kill off the Israelite males. 

He had attempted this through genocice and killing of males. Then Pharaoh had ordered males to be thrown into the river and drowned. 

Barbaric. 

We see the birth of Moses and his eventual calling to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. 

I give all of that background just as a reminder of where we’ve been. 

Today we come to some of the best known events in the Bible. 

The plagues of Exodus when Pharaoh is repeatedly told to release the Israelites. 

And when he refuses, God brings divine judgment. 

The Nile river turned to blood. 

A plague of frogs. 

A plague of gnats.

A plague of flies. 

The death of livestock.

A plague of boils. 

A plague of hail. 

A plague of locusts. 

Darkness. 

Death. 

It’s interesting to consider the plagues of Exodus. 

Because I look back at the last year and a half, and I can’t be the only one who at times looked at everything going on in our nation and around the world and felt like we were actually LIVING through the Biblical plagues. 

Plagues of 2020

Starting last year, in March, we had Covid turn our whole society upside down. 

Then we ran out of toilet paper. 

None of us probably ever thought that would be an issue we’d have to deal with, but deal with it we did. 

Then in May, there were stories about murder hornets in the Pacific Northwest. 

Murder hornets!

Throughout the summer, there were riots and civil unrest. 

More shortages. Everything from coins, to cleaning supplies, to bicycles. 

Shipping delays. Total disruption of supply chains. 

Wildfires. 

I read that last year was the worst year for wildfires in recorded U.S. history. Five of the six worst wildfires to hit California since 1932 happened last year. 

Disease, murder hornets, civil unrest, wildfires, no toilet paper. 

Last summer, there was a plague of locusts in Africa. Did you know that? 

Billions of locusts. Tremendous destruction to crops. 

That’s something about the Biblical plagues to understand. When it talks of things like plagues of locusts or infestations of frogs, those are real things. Those are things that cause issues in parts of the world.

More shortages. 

Now we have labor shortages. 

Economic fallout. 

Inflation. 

More product shortages. Building materials, microchips, and beef are all through the roof. 

And on, and on, and on. 

We’re surviving. But it’s amazing how these changes can so drastically impact life for so many. 

Bridge

So with that, we return to Exodus this morning and we’re going to look at three scenes. 

Pharaoh’s opposition to God. 

God’s warning to Pharaoh. 

God’s judgment on Egypt. 

The main idea of this passage is that opposition to God will never work. 

1. Pharaoh’s opposition to God

In Exodus 4, after God had called upon Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, the Lord shows Moses two miracles. 

He turns the shepherd’s staff of Moses into a serpent and he gives Moses leprosy and then heals him. 

The Lord tells Moses to show these signs to Pharaoh, but in Exodus 4:21, the Lord says: 

“When you go back to Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the miracles that I have put in your power. But I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go. 

I point this out because this will become a common idea throughout the Exodus plagues, and it’s found for the first time here. 

The hardening of Pharaoh’s heart. 

Between Exodus 4 and Exodus 14, the idea of Pharaoh’s heart being hardened is mentioned 19 times. 

Most of those instances are God as the active agent who is hardening the heart of Pharaoh, such as what we see here in this current verse. 

What does that mean? 

To harden one’s heart? 

Does that mean that God is causing Pharaoh to resist him? Is God causing him to sin?

No. 

God never causes us to sin. 

Something that’s important to understand from the outset is throughout these passages, there is a clash of world views and a clash of religions in Exodus. 

The Egyptians believed in a pantheon of gods. Gods of the river, the weather, livestock, the sun, the sky. And in the plagues, you have the Lord God showing that their false gods are all powerless against the Lord. 

In these passages, you’ll have a clash between Pharaoh, who was thought to be a quasi-divine person vs the Lord. Spoiler alert: the Lord wins. 

And you also have a conflict of the religious views of the Israelites and the Egyptians. 

In Egyptian religion, they believed that when a person died, the heart was weighed. Sin added weight to the heart. There are hieroglyphics which show the heart being weighed compared to the weight of a feather. 

A person’s admittance to the Egyptian idea of heaven depended on their own goodness. That’s what most religions ultimately believe. 

Old Testament scholar Douglas Stuart is very helpful on this point. 

Since the Pharaoh was such a revered figure in Egypt, they viewed him as being a morally pure. And that’s something that is very different from how we view our leaders. 

Look at most presidents throughout our history. We generally don’t look to them as our exemplars of morality. 

But with the Pharaoh who was a king and also a religious figure, they did. 

And so the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart is a judgment. 

Again, the Egyptians thought that the gods weighed the heart, judged the heart. 

The fact that the Lord can harden the heart shows his power over Pharaoh. 

This also showed – quoting Douglas Stuart now – “​​that Yahweh had done what the Egyptians thought the “gods” would usually do—weigh the heart and decide whether its owner was worthy of eternal life or not.”

The weighing of Pharaoh’s heart is a matter of showing the sin and rebellion of Pharaoh. 

Ultimately the choice to refuse God is one that Pharaoh continually makes in these passages. 

And as a result of that, his heart is hardened. Weight is added to his heart as he continues to sin. 

We’re still building up to the first plague. 

At the beginning of chapter 5, Moses asks Pharaoh to allow the Israelites to go into the wilderness for a religious pilgrimage. . 

Moses and Aaron went and said to Pharaoh, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.’ ” ² But Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and moreover, I will not let Israel go.”

We see Pharaoh’s hubris before the Lord. 

And as I mentioned a moment ago, we’ll see him trying to go toe to toe with the Lord. 

Who is the Lord? 

Last week, we pointed out that the book of Exodus never tells us which Pharaoh this is. 

So he asks Who is the Lord? 

But the Bible leaves us questioning who is Pharaoh? 

He doesn’t listen. He continues to make life miserable for the Israelites. In chapter 6, Moses is again told to confront Pharaoh. 

Exodus 6:10 into verse 12:

​​So the Lord said to Moses, ¹¹ “Go in, tell Pharaoh king of Egypt to let the people of Israel go out of his land.” ¹² But Moses said to the Lord, “Behold, the people of Israel have not listened to me. How then shall Pharaoh listen to me

As we saw last week, Moses continues to explain why he’s not the man for the job. 

At the beginning of chapter 7, the Lord gives Moses and his brother Aaron their marching orders. 

Exodus 7:2-4:

² You shall speak all that I command you, and your brother Aaron shall tell Pharaoh to let the people of Israel go out of his land. ³ But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, ⁴ Pharaoh will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and bring my hosts, my people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great acts of judgment.  ⁵ The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from among them.

In summary: 

The Lord says he will give the words to speak. 

Pharaoh’s heart will be hardened. 

The Lord will show greater signs and wonders. 

Pharaoh will not listen. 

God will bring judgement

God will bring his people out of Egypt. 

With that, we come to our second scene for today. 

2. God’s warning to Pharaoh 

Verses 8-9:

⁸ Then the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, ⁹ “When Pharaoh says to you, ‘Prove yourselves by working a miracle,’ then you shall say to Aaron, ‘Take your staff and cast it down before Pharaoh, that it may become a serpent.’ ”

As a reminder, this was a miracle that the Lord had shown Moses in chapter 4. 

A shepherd’s staff was a common possession in ancient times. They were used to aid in walking, they could be used for protection, they could be used for helping to tend to livestock. 

So a pretty ordinary object for the time period. 

But the Lord will work through this ordinary object for an extraordinary purpose. 

Verse 10: 

​​¹⁰ So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just as the Lord commanded. Aaron cast down his staff before Pharaoh and his servants, and it became a serpent.

So Moses does this sign to display the power of the God whom he serves. 

But then verse 11 tells us: 

Then Pharaoh summoned the wise men and the sorcerers, and they, the magicians of Egypt, also did the same by their secret arts.

Pharaoh’s people do the same thing. 

The verse calls them wise men and sorcerers. 

They seem to be people who may have had some sort of priestly function. 

So when the word magician is used, it’s not like Penn and Teller are doing this. 

The passage does not tell us how they replicate turning their staffs into serpents. 

Perhaps it’s simple trickery. 

Perhaps it’s demonic. 

The text doesn’t tell us. 

But if there’s any confusion about the Pharaoh’s wise men one-upping this miracle, verse 12 says: 

 ¹² For each man cast down his staff, and they became serpents. But Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs.

So when they threw their staffs to the ground, and those staffs also became serpents, Aaron’s serpent ate there’s. 

And so Pharaoh is unmoved. 

Verse 13:

 Still Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he would not listen to them, as the Lord had said. 

A sinful heart can always find reasons to ignore the Lord. 

He’d been warned by God’s word. He’d been shown a divine sign. 

And he said “No.” 

Pharaoh had seen evidence for God working but refused to listen because he chose instead to trust in his wise men. 

When we don’t want to trust in the Lord, we can always find a reason. 

I think of all of the evidence we have for God, evidence for the resurrection, reasons to believe in God, and still so many say no. 

Why? 

Not because there is a lack of evidence, but people don’t believe in God because they don’t want to. 

Validation – going our own way 

Romans 1:18-20 says: 

the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. ¹⁹ For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. ²⁰ For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

There’s evidence for God. 

God reveals himself to the world. 

Psalm 19:1: 

¹ The heavens declare the glory of God, 

and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. 

For Pharaoh, he looks at what his wise men had just done and uses that as a justification to ignore the Lord. 

Today, I fear that this is what science has become. 

I’m not anti-science. And there are many scientists who are strong believers. 

But there are also many people in our society who look to science and since they feel they can’t observe or measure God, scientifically, then they shouldn’t believe in him. And what that’s doing is quite literally putting faith in science and its putting your eternal hope in science. 

Which as someone who studied philosophy in college, I’ve always found this mentality to be self destructive. Because the idea that all truth is scientific is itself not a scientific idea. It’s a philosophical idea. 

The methodology by which things are judged as being scientifically verified is also philosophical. Science cannot create its own scientific method. 

And so for science to stand, it needs something outside of itself to give it its structure. 

I get that there are people who are very scientifically minded. I appreciate that.  

And again, I’m not anti-science. Scientific discoveries have helped revolutionize the modern world. 

But we shouldn’t blindly place our faith in it.

Romans 1:24-25 says: 

God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, ²⁵ because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. 

Pharaoh was called upon to release the Israelites. He refused. 

God will not compromise. 

So you have Pharaoh, the anti-God who tries to stand down the Lord God. 

In Jesus, we see the one who truly is fully man and fully God. We see the one who truly does have a pure heart. We see the one who truly is righteous.

And he invites us to believe in him. He invites sinful people to be forgiven in him. 

And for that, he will also not compromise. 

God’s judgment – the first plague

Starting in verse 14:

¹⁴ Then the Lord said to Moses, “Pharaoh’s heart is hardened; he refuses to let the people go. ¹⁵ Go to Pharaoh in the morning, as he is going out to the water. Stand on the bank of the Nile to meet him, and take in your hand the staff that turned into a serpent. 

Moses is called to given Pharaoh a forewarning of this judgment. 

That will not happen with all ten of the plagues. 

Where verse 15 tells Moses to go to Pharaoh in the morning as he is going into the water, either Pharaoh had a habit of swimming in the river, or bathing in the river. Either way, that’s the palace where Moses is told to meet him. Pharaoh will be a first hand witness to this judgment. 

Moses is to take the same staff that had been turned into a serpent and to use that staff to touch the water. Now it’s not that the staff had power in itself. It was the Lord who was powerful and who will work this miracle. 

Verse 17: 

Thus says the Lord, “By this you shall know that I am the Lord: behold, with the staff that is in my hand I will strike the water that is in the Nile, and it shall turn into blood.

This is what the first plague will be. 

The NIle will be turned into blood.

A few things to note about the Nile river. 

It’s the longest river in the world. 

Unlike rivers in this part of America which flow from north to south, the Nile flows from south to north. 

In this period of history, the river would flood annually, usually in September and October as waters from further down the river in Africa and would flow down the river and cause floods in Egypt. Now we usually think of flooding as a bad thing, but it was essential to the Egyptians in a desert that sees very low rainfall. 

Now it’s a fitting place for the first plague because hitting the Nile was hitting the lifeblood – no pun intended – of Egyptian society. It was necessary for their drinking water, necessary for their agriculture. 

It’s also fitting to the story that the Nile is the site of the first plague. Earlier in Exodus, we’d seen Pharaoh attempt to punish the Egyptians by ordering that their male babies be placed into the river, as a horrific act of genocide. 

But here that river will be what God uses to bring judgment on Egypt. 

Something else to consider. I alluded to this earlier, but there were also Egyptian gods associated with the Nile. 

Hapi was the Egyptian god of the flood. There were annual floods of the Nile which helped bring essential water to the soil. 

Another mythological Egyptian deity associated with the Nile was Osiris, the god of the afterlife. The Egyptians also associated him with the river and the annual flood of the river became associated with life and death. The flooding of the river was associated with the resurrection of Osiris. 

Something that I find interesting is that some scholars believe that this first plague occurred during the flood period. 

We don’t know that for a fact, but if that was when this water into blood happened, at a time associated with the resurrection of Osiris, it would certainly be a very striking and unsettling sight for the Egyptians to see the Nile running red at a time associated with the deity whom they believed had power over life and death. 

Pharaoh continues to be warned about what will happen to this river. Verse 18:

¹⁸ The fish in the Nile shall die, and the Nile will stink, and the Egyptians will grow weary of drinking water from the Nile.” ’ ”

Dead fish, rotting dead fish, and undrinkable water. 

Again, there are legitimate questions about what exactly happens to the water. 

There are many places where Exodus doesn’t always give us all of the details we would like. 

But the main point is that this is something that the Lord miraculously causes to happen. With all of the plagues, that’s the most important thing. That the Lord is almighty and he is the cause. 

Something else to note. While the Nile is really an important symbol of Egyptian life and livelihood. This first plague is ultimately going to be a nuisance for the Egyptians. Future plagues will be far more severe. 

Continuing with the narrative. 

¹⁹ And the Lord said to Moses, “Say to Aaron, ‘Take your staff and stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt, over their rivers, their canals, and their ponds, and all their pools of water, so that they may become blood, and there shall be blood throughout all the land of Egypt, even in vessels of wood and in vessels of stone.’ ” 

The verse says: their rivers, their canals, and their ponds, and all their pools of water

The point that seems to be making is that it’s not just the Nile’s waters which are impacted. It has a far reaching ecological impact. The river and where it flows. 

 there shall be blood throughout all the land of Egypt, even in vessels of wood and in vessels of stone.’ ” 

That verse has more than one plausible interpretation. The major interpretations all get at the idea that this is talking of the far reaching consequences of the blood. 

Verse 20, after all of the warnings and what has been foretold, we finally see the first plague set into motion: 

²⁰ Moses and Aaron did as the Lord commanded. In the sight of Pharaoh and in the sight of his servants he lifted up the staff and struck the water in the Nile, and all the water in the Nile turned into blood. ²¹ And the fish in the Nile died, and the Nile stank, so that the Egyptians could not drink water from the Nile. There was blood throughout all the land of Egypt.

The river has been turned to blood. 

Now there is question about if it’s literal blood. And if so, what type of blood? Human blood? Animal blood? 

Could it be some sort of microorganism which turns the water red? 

There can be algae blooms which turn water red. 

Could it be turned red from some sort of rocky sediment? 

Again, we don’t get all of the details. 

Does it teach Pharaoh a lesson? 

In verse 22, we see another twist in the story though. 

 ²² But the magicians of Egypt did the same by their secret arts. So Pharaoh’s heart remained hardened, and he would not listen to them, as the Lord had said. ²³ Pharaoh turned and went into his house, and he did not take even this to heart.

As we’d seen with the serpent, the Pharaoh’s wise men are also able to turn water to blood some how. By their secret arts. And again, we don’t know exactly how. 

It is interesting that they too could do the same thing, yet what they could not do was fix it.

And while they may have been able to turn some of the water to blood, it was certainly not as far reaching as what the Lord did. 

Pharaoh had witnessed this miracle. He’d seen the destruction that had come from it. 

But he still would not relent. 

²⁴ And all the Egyptians dug along the Nile for water to drink, for they could not drink the water of the Nile.

The Egyptian people couldn’t use the Nile for drinking water so they had to dig for ground water. 

So there was some potable drinking water. 

So again, it is dramatic, it is significant, but it is ultimately a major inconvenience to the people. 

It should have caught Pharaoh’s attention. 

It should have caused Pharaoh to change and to listen to God, but it didn’t. 

A lot more pain and misery will await him in the coming events of Exodus. 

And there is a lot of misery in life when we avoid God.

No, he might not reign down plagues on us. 

Conclusion

But he is truth. He is our creator. He is our Lord. 

And the only way to live a life of true fulfillment, of true joy, of true peace is in him. 

Does that mean all of those things will come easily when we say a prayer or get baptized? No. 

Because there’s still sin in our life and in the world. 

But without God, we can not have those things. 

Does that mean that life will suddenly become easy at the snap of your fingers? No. There are challenges and difficulties. But you won’t be alone. You’ll have God. 

Does that mean that everything you want God will give you? No. But God gives us what we need. And he gives us himself. Jesus literally gave himself on the cross. He literally gave up his life so that we could have life. 

God calls us to trust, he calls us to believe. 

And still so many turn their backs on him, find reasons why they can’t believe in him. It doesn’t work because it’s not living in accordance of what we were made for and who we were made for. 

Quoting C.S. Lewis: 

God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on petrol, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there.”

True fulfillment cannot come apart from God, because to find fulfillment in anything else would be to find it in something that is less than God. When we aim for less than God, there is discontent because there is something bigger, something greater that we need. 

Something that God has made cannot be the source of where we find fulfillment, where we find true joy, where we find true peace. 

True life cannot come apart from the true source of life. 

And so we’re called upon to trust in the Lord. And to trust in his son, Jesus Christ