When God's Collide

It is amazing to me when I read or listen to ancient greek mythology, that their gods and goddesses were just as cruel, and profane as the people who created them. I've read the stories of the god's son, killing the father and marrying the mother, and others committing horrible acts to one another and even supposedly to humans. Great wars in ancient history were conducted in the name of gods and goddesses and often a kingdom was known to be strong or weak as to the god they served and worshipped. It was often no more than superstition, and fear mongering, that took place in the ancient kingdoms in regard to religion.

Many empires of the past even looked to their ruler as a form of deity. We can find this in Egypt, the Romans, even today North Korea's Kim Jong Un claims to be a god.

We find in the Old Testament book of Exodus a great war of will between two gods. This struggle for power is found in Exodus from chapter 7 through parts of chapter 12. Now I am not going to read all of that tonight, but I encourage you to read this when you get a chance this week, it was real enlightening to study again.

This tonight is not an expositional study, but rather a few thoughts I had while I looked at these plagues and the real battle that was going on in this passage of scripture.

I hope you catch the sarcasm in the title I have given this little talk tonight, "When God's Collide" there is only one GOD, all of the rest are artificial substitutes.

Pharaoh never concerned God at all, in fact just a little squish and he would have been gone. Sometimes it's not only empire ruler's trying to be god. I've seen many people make a total loss of their life, trying to play god. They try to figure out their own problems, they judge things based on the way they feel, defiantly arguing against the very Word of God. They think they have a better plan or way of doing things, or would have done them differently. Have you ever seen a cat with a mouse? I grew up in the country and watched both mouse and bird fall prey to the auspices of a lurking cat. The poor little animal especially the mouse will often survive the initial pounce and thinks it still has a chance to escape, all the while forgetting that it's tail will give it away almost every time. The cat will let the little varmint venture out to where it's beginning to feel safe again, all to have the cat's paw come clashing down and dragging it back to be played with again, and often again. The little creature really doesn't have a chance. And yet we so much small in comparison to a mouse, one writer in the Bible likens us to a worm, dares to think we can out smart, or be more wise or brilliant than an almighty God.

Which is another thought I had while reading through these plagues - Pharaoh you are no match for God

The stick turning to a snake didn't phase him, his answer was still emphatically NO!

`Now Moses and Aaron were not magicians, they were following God, but the Pharaoh who claimed to be a form of deity had to fall back on his magicians to perform this trick, and their snakes were swallowed up. The Water turning to blood didn't really shake him too much either - it was still NO!

This was almost as if God was trying to get more than one point across, the river you depend on for life that has killed who knows how many boy babies of Jacob in will now become unprofitable and undependable. Something I had failed to notice before is the people began to get desperate, and started digging around the river trying to get to the water that was underground maybe it would be clean. Then come the frogs, the magician's again are able to duplicate, although I've never been able to figure out why they tried, who wants to add more frogs to too many frogs? These weren't cute cuddly frogs popping out of sock drawers and bedroom slippers they were everywhere,

Exodus 8:3-4 puts it this way; 3 And the river shall bring forth frogs abundantly, which shall go up and come into thine house, and into thy bedchamber, and upon thy bed, and into the house of thy servants, and upon thy people, and into thine ovens, and into thy kneadingtroughs: 4 And the frogs shall come up both on thee, and upon thy people, and upon all thy servants. This isn't just a bunch of frogs this is an invasion. Pharaoh still pretending to be God and know what was best, is somewhat shaken but not really moved, "pray to your god that these frogs are removed" and he goes so far as to promise to let them go, but of course changes his mind after the frogs are out of his hair. This is the last plague the magicians are recorded to have duplicated. They tried to duplicate the lice but had to confess in Exodus 8:19 Then the magicians said unto Pharaoh, This is the finger of God: Then came lice, and the loss of their livestock, flies and boils - and Pharaoh still wanting to play god, refuses on every hand, Then came the hail, locust, darkness and then finally the loss of all the firstborn in Egypt. You would think he would be ready to submit - but one running theme you find in these passages is Pharaoh hardened his heart, and then it continued to be hardened until he after all the devastation and loss, still pursues the children of Israel. Now I want to bring this down to today - how do we play god in our lives?

Making our own decisions instead of basing them on what God said, and what God wants us to do.

Such as, "It's my body and I can do with it what I want to" No one has a right to tell me how to live my life. As long as I'm happy I should be able to do what I want to do. Sometimes we play god, by thinking we know better than him.

I heard a lady recently give her testimony how she was sick and had been for years and had prayed and been prayed over for years to be healed. She just knew God was wanted to heal her, but she just couldn't seem to get it. She went to a church and the ladies gathered around her to pray, and they prayed for a while a couple of times, and someone told her she needed to forgive, so she went through the list, she forgave her mom and dad, she forgave her brothers and sisters, her extended family, her husband, her friends etc. etc. and somewhere in there the Lord spoke to her and made it clear, she needed to forgive God. Now when I first heard that I almost choked, it sounded so irreverent, but the more I have thought about it, I have seen this play out so many times. She started to say I forgive you God, I forgive you and such a peace and love filled her heart, and then she realized she was healed as well . I don't know if you have ever seen this, but I remember hearing my Mom tell so often about her nephew Joey that was her little buddy. . Now I didn't know my cousin Joey he was riding in the back of a pickup truck about 40 years ago in the little town of Winfield with another one of my Aunt's and Uncle. A drunk driver swerved over into their lane, Uncle Carmen got over to the side of the road as far as he could but it just wasn't far enough the drunk driver hit them head on and Joey was thrown from the pickup and killed that night along with Uncle Carmen and critically wounded the others. My mother when she heard this, was so hurt and crushed by it, she began to dwell on it and let it fester, and soon she was so bitter and angry at God. She turned her back on God and our home became so dark and gloomy. They tell the story that Mom and Dad's marriage was on the rocks, they were always fighting and bickering, even to one point where Dad threw a glass of tea at Mom and she threw the whole pitcher at him, intending to hit him with it. A dark time. While my mother didn't realize it, she thought she knew better than God, all the while God had something better in mind, she couldn't see. It was sometime later when Foley was in revival that Bro. Sammey and Sis. Carol along with the evangelist came knocking at Mom and Dad's door, mom went and answered I don't think she even invited them in, but after they left she turned to shut the door, and down in the inner most recesses of her soul, she felt something that she hadn't felt in a long time, somewhat like Fanny Crosby in her hymn Rescue the Perishing put it, "

Down in the human heart, crushed by the tempter,

Feelings lie buried that grace can restore;

Touched by a loving heart, wakened by kindness,

Chords that were broken will vibrate once more.

God was speaking to Mom, and those broken chords were starting to vibrate once more. Now I have never heard her put it in these words, but in those few moments she again faced an almighty God, and she let all of those feelings of hatred and bitterness toward God go they later attended the revival and fell at the Savior's feet and found peace and pardon.

I guess what I was seeing tonight in this passage is we can either continue to play god and ultimately lose the war;

Or we can surrender everything to him, leave it in his hand, and win the greatest battle ever known to man.