Sermon Tone Analysis

Scholars and skeptics have done a lot of work over the years to rationally explain the plagues God visited on Egypt; the attempt is to explain-away the divine aspect of the blood and frogs, gnats and flies, livestock and boils, hail and locust, darkness and death.

In the case of the two plagues we’re looking at this morning—gnats and flies—some suggest that the gnats and flies came from the maggots brooding in the piles of the rotting frogs leftover from plague #2.

As wonderfully disgusting as that is, we know that’s not the case.

Others say the gnats/flies were really mosquitoes caused by seasonal Egyptian flooding in the late autumn months.

“What’s more,” they say, “the number of mosquitoes would have been especially great because there were no frogs to keep them in check.”

True, all the frogs croaked, but that doesn’t account for the plagues of gnats and flies.

These explanations for the plagues simply ignore the plain reading of the Bible.

God brought the plagues upon the people of Egypt with a word, saying: “The dust will become gnats,” and “I will send swarms of flies on you and your people.”

It’s no big wonder or surprise when people ignore what the Bible has to say; nor should it shock us when people neglect to see the distinctiveness of our God.

>Our God is distinctive.

That is, our God is to be distinguished from all other gods.

Who God is and what God does is characteristic of Him and Him alone.

Our God is not common.

He cannot be explained away.

He is set apart—by His deeds, His character, His power, His being.

As we look at Exodus 8 this morning, we will see several points of distinction, if we have eyes to see and ears to hear:

- Our distinctive God and His distinctive miracles

- A distinctive people and their distinctive purpose

If you have your Bible (and I hope you do), please turn to Exodus 8 and follow along as we read from God’s Holy Word.

Exodus 8:16-18—

Distinctive Miracle, Distinctive God

It’s pretty incredible.

Aaron takes the staff of God and strikes the ground with it, and boom: all the dust in the desert turns to gnats.

Can you even imagine?

In modern Hebrew, the word for this insect means “lice,” which is the way the KJV translates it.

Some think, based on the behavior of these insects—that they came on the people and animals—that these must be mosquitoes or lice, rather than gnats.

An early writer name Philo of Alexandria described these insects as creeping up people’s noses and into the ears.

Whatever they were, they were nagging, annoying pests that swarmed all over Egypt, bothering every living, breathing Egyptian person and animal.

Like the other 9 plagues/disasters that befell the Egyptians, the plague of gnats (bugs) was a gen-u-ine, bon-a-fide miracle.

A miracle is a direct act of divine intervention in which God overrules His creation to display His glory.

A miracle is, by nature, supernatural—above nature, outside the natural order.

Each plague with which the Lord strikes Egypt is a gen-u-ine miracle.

Unlike the previous two miracles, the magicians couldn’t produce gnats by their secret arts.

Pharaoh’s magicians were, by whatever power or trickery, able to reproduce the water turning to blood and bringing frogs on the land (i.e.

making things worse on themselves).

They had no power or mastery over the water or the frogs; they couldn’t make the blood turn back into water or make the frogs go away.

They were counterfeiters, that’s all.

But here, they were unable to recreate or mimic any part of this miracle.

The all-powerful Lord is, on the other hand, demonstrating His power over all creation: over water, earth, and sky.

He is the Lord of all creation.

And He will, here in the plagues and elsewhere, disrupt the natural order.

It’s almost as if God is un-creating the world He made…at least in Egypt.

Dr. John Currid writes about the parallels between these plagues and the days of creation:

“When God created the world, He separated light from the darkness (Day 1; Gen. 1:1–5); but in the ninth plague light was blotted out (Exod.

10:21–29).

When God created the world, He gathered the water into one place (Day 2; Gen. 1:6–8); but in the first plague the water was turned to blood (Exod.

7:15–25).

When God created the world, He made vegetation grow on the land (Day 3; Gen. 1:9–13); but in the seventh and eighth plagues he destroyed Egypt’s crops (Exod.

9:18–10:20).

When God created the world, He put two great lights in the heavens (Day 4; Gen. 1:14–19); but with the ninth plague, the sun ceased to shine (Exod.

10:21–29).

When God created the world, He made the waters swarm with creatures of the sea (Day 5; Gen. 1:20–23); but the first and second plagues ended with the death of fish and frogs (Exod.

7:15–8:15).

When God created the world, He made land animals and people (Day 6; Gen. 1:24–31); but the third through sixth plagues afflicted both man and beast with pestilence and disease (Exod.

8:16–9:17), until God finally killed every first-born son in Egypt (Exod.

11–12).”

God is “de-creating Egypt.”

He is bringing chaos out of order.

And by doing this, God is making a direct assault on the Egyptians and their gods.

The Egyptian people believed that Pharaoh had the power to maintain cosmic order.

They called this cosmic order: ma’at.

This was the universal equilibrium, the “cosmic force of harmony, order, stability, security.”

And it was Pharaoh’s responsibility to maintain ma’at by controlling the climate, regulating the seasons, preserving order in the world.

By striking them with plagues, God was confronting the Egyptians’ basic beliefs about order and balance in the universe.

“Dust just turned into gnats, you guys?!?!?”

Pharaoh could not be the true God because he was unable to maintain ma’at (balance and equilibrium) in the world.

Only the God of Israel has the power to control chaos in the cosmos.

God turns the tables on Pharaoh and his followers.

They’re in the upside down.

Everything they once knew is turned on its head.

Beg’s the question: What’s your foundation?

What’s the source of your equilibrium?

Where do you find your security?

Some people base their sense of security on their jobs or their financial well-being.

Others depend on their intelligence or likability.

But, in the day of disaster, when chaos reigns, none of these things will be able to hold our world together.

What happens when the markets crash?

I was working in the financial industry in 2008 when everything came crashing down.

I had meeting after meeting with once-wealthy people who lost 60, 70, 80% of their assets.

What had steadied them was ripped out from under their feet.

What happens then?

What happens when downsizing takes your job?

What happens when she files for divorce or when you end up in the hospital and are given a terminal diagnosis?

When our world gets turned upside down, we discover pretty quickly that our abilities and possessions and gods cannot save us.

It’s no fun when this happens, but it’s an absolutely crucial moment in the journey of faith.

I love that Pharaoh’s magicians realize they can’t replicate this miracle; that they come to the realization that Pharaoh isn’t the one who holds everything together.

The upside down is the best thing for us; it helps us to look to the One who controls all this.

It reminds us to build our house on the rock so that when the rain comes down and the streams rise and the winds blow and beat against our house, it will not fall because it has its foundation on the rock.

Exodus 8:18-19—

Distinctive Miracle, Distinctive God

The magicians who could mimic and duplicate what the Lord had done in the first two plagues (either by demonic force or clever trickery) are now unable to do what the Lord has done.

No gnats appear at their bidding.

Imagine them trying, though!

Just smacking the ground with their staffs, over and over, all the while covered with bugs, head to toe.

To their credit, Pharaoh’s magicians realize they are dealing with a higher power—"This is the finger of God,” they say.

“This is the finger of God.”

This is an admission that what’s going on here is divine; it’s above them.

It’s nothing they could even fake.

But this isn’t a declaration of faith in the Lord.

All these magicians are saying is that this is the doing of some supreme being.

They don’t say “Lord” (Yahweh); they say “God” (Elohim).

They use a general name for God, not the personal name of the Lord Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews.

They miss His distinctiveness.

You see, it’s not enough to say you believe in God.

What matters is what you say about Jesus.

Many people believe in “God”.