Still Unyeilding

Exodus 9:1-7

Offering

If we just read these back to back without thought or prayer, then we might start to feel that this message is getting old or stale

Let my people go or something bad will happen

something bad happens

Pharaoh’s heart is hard

God’s people aren’t let go

Repeat

Each plague is different in it’s own way

we find a new piece of information, or God does something a little different in each

Each is an attack on different parts of the Egyptians lives

and most also go to show the one true God’s power over the gods that the Egyptians worship.

The New International Version Chapter 9

Then the LORD said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh and say to him, ‘This is what the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, says: “Let my people go, so that they may worship me.” 2 If you refuse to let them go and continue to hold them back, 3 the hand of the LORD will bring a terrible plague on your livestock in the field—on your horses, donkeys and camels and on your cattle, sheep and goats. 4 But the LORD will make a distinction between the livestock of Israel and that of Egypt, so that no animal belonging to the Israelites will die.’ ”

So let’s look at some similarities to the other plagues

Like most, this 5th plague comes with a warning ahead of time.

Like all of them, there is a specific thing God is going to do

Like the plague of flies, God is going to protect the Israelites form this plague.

Like others, there are gods that He is showing power over.

As we talked about last week, the cow and the bull were sacred to them

The bull represented the god Apis

and the cow, Hathor

who was depicted as a woman with the horns of a cow

there was also Khnum, the ram-god.

The New International Version Chapter 9

The LORD set a time and said, “Tomorrow the LORD will do this in the land.” 6 And the next day the LORD did it: All the livestock of the Egyptians died, but not one animal belonging to the Israelites died. 7 Pharaoh investigated and found that not even one of the animals of the Israelites had died. Yet his heart was unyielding and he would not let the people go.

Once again, God made a claim and He then followed through

He again showed great power and great restraint.

He protected His people

We would have to say that the magicians didn’t replicate this one because you can’t kill all the animals again.

It would be easy to point out that Pharaoh saw these things and still had a hard heart

it would be easy to look at the power of God again

it would be easy to point out how God had protected His own people again.

These are all true and important to the story of what happened.

However, this is not our focus this morning

For those of you who have been a part of this series from the beginning, you may remember this all started with the purpose of understanding the truth about Moses and the works that God did through him.

We want to look at truth and recognize what Scripture says and what it doesn’t say

in doing this, we also want to recognize what all of it means for us.

We have clearly pointed out over the last several weeks that Moses was merely a man.

we have pointed out many flaws that he had

many things that were failures of Moses’

I don’t point these out to harp on him, but to

one recognize where the power actually comes from

and two, to show that even though he failed at times, when God called on Moses and he answered, God was still able to use a man with faults.

we can also recognize growth in Moses,

He made steps to become a better servant of God

and that brings us to this point today.

This is the 5th plague

At least 6 times Moses has gone to Pharaoh and asked him to let the people go worship, just as God had asked him to do.

This means that 6 or more times, moses has been rejected.

We know too, that at least one of these times, likely more, the Israelites rejected him too.

When rejection comes, it hurts.

when it comes over and over again it can be devastating.

When that rejection comes from people your know, family or people you are trying to help, the difficulty increases.

Remember, Moses is trying to help the people of his heritage

his family’s people, God’s people, yet they believe he is making life worse on them, therefor they reject him.

Moses likely grew up with this King

he was raised by relatives of this king

Part of Moses is going to recognize the Egyptians as his people as well.

Yet, it is constant rejection!

Through it all, he keeps coming back

He keeps serving God

You will face rejection

the question is, can you keep your focus on the one who sees all of His plans through to the end?

Invitation!