FBT Daily Devotional: Exodus 9

FBT Daily Devotional

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

If I had to give thank you. If I had to give a title to Exodus chapter 9, I would say I'm with him. That's going to be my title for Exodus chapter 9. So in Exodus chapter 9, we have the continuation of the plagues that started on um in the previous chapters that we have looked at. In uh this chapter, we have the plague of the death of the livestock. And if you do a little bit of research about these different um plagues, they are said to represent the different gods because Egypt was a polytheistic type of situation. We um uh subscribe to monotheism, we believe in the one true God. We don't have multiple gods for multiple things, we just have one God, right? Uh one-stop shop. It makes me think about today in medicine. It used to be a time where there was one doctor who did everything, but now in medicine, everything is specialized. If you have a problem with your foot, they send you to a podiatrist. If you have a problem with your veins and arteries, they send you to a vascular doctor. If you have a problem with your heart, they'll send you to a cardiologist. And if that gets further than that, then you might have to go to an um interventional doctor. And if it gets further than that, after they do a heart catheterization on you, then you might have to see a cardiothoracic surgeon. It just is everything is ever so specialized, depending on what you need. But and that's how it was with these gods. You had a God for every different thing, but God is the one true God, the all-encompassing God. We don't need multiple gods, we just have Him. So the death of the livestock, um, it could be represented um in their time by Hathor, the goddess of the cowhead, or at peace, the bull god, symbol of fertility, the um plague of the bulls that came upon them, um, sickmet, goddess of with power over disease, Sunni, the pestilence god, Isis, healing goddess, the um um plague of the hail, uh newt, the sky goddess, Osiris, god of the crops and fertility, seat, god of the desert storms. God, our God, is showing his power, his majesty over all these different gods that the Egyptians had, just to prove that he is definitely the one true God, right? And there are several lessons that we can learn from Exodus chapter 9. I'm gonna list uh 10 of them and just kind of run down for you what I found when I was doing my research. So, number one, the sovereignty of God. You know, in all of this, we see that God has absolute control over creation and over history. Like the plagues demonstrate his power and his authority over everything, over the time, over the seasons, over the crops, over um the livestock. Everything was underneath God's control, even when the Egyptians thought they were in control. Nope. Um, God was ultimately in control. Um, the hardness of heart. How dangerous is it to have a hard heart that will not listen, that will not heed, that will not take instruction. Pharaoh saw these different plagues happening and playing out in front of him, and the destruction that was not just causing him, but it was causing his people. His people were feeling all this pain too. But guess who wasn't feeling pain? The people who are with God, the people that were in Goshen. Like I have highlighted in this chapter, um, verses. Let me look at it right now. It's two different uh sets of verses. Okay, yeah, verse 4. And the Lord will make a difference between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of Egypt, so nothing shall die of that that belongs to the children of Israel. And then dropping down further, verse 26. Only in the land of Goshen, where the children of Israel were, there was no hell. We're with him, right? He right, he makes sure that we good, we are separate, we are set apart, we don't have those issues and those problems that everybody else has. Like, for instance, right now with the gas prices and everything going up, you know. Um, and I want you to take this as your personal confession, you know, that has nothing to do with me. My God supplies all of my needs. Like I was talking to my husband the other day, you know, he well, yes, we uh noticed that the gas price is going up, but have we felt it? No, we absolutely have not felt it. It has not made a difference in how we move, how we flow, how we do anything, because our God takes care of us, supplies all of our needs, give us all the finances, money, whatever we need to be able to do everything that we need to do. So praise God for the fact that he provides and takes care of his people, you know. And if he does it for my household, of course, I know he'll do it for your households as well, because he's not a respecter of persons, he's a respecter of faith. And if you have faith in his provision capacity, then the provision will work for you. Um, another lesson that we can learn is the importance of dis uh obedience, excuse me, and also the importance of disobedience when it comes to not doing what he says, but the importance of obedience. So in um Moses and Aaron obeying the commands of God, uh they are showing their faithfulness to deliver God's message to Pharaoh despite the challenges, despite the problems, despite the persecution, despite the fact that, you know, Pharaoh could have decided to try to kill him. You know, I don't think he would have been successful because they were on a mission for God, doing what God told them to do, but he could have tried to do that. You know, we see in all throughout scripture where prophets and um uh men of God that came and delivered a message for God were um beaten and they were put into dungeons and they were uh put into cisterns, all kinds of stuff happened to them, negative things happened to them, but they were doing what God said. So, you know, and not saying that couldn't happen in this one situation, but they took that risk and they stood up faithful in spite of what was happening. Oh, next thing we can learn from this is the power of prayer. So Moses was interceding on behalf of Pharaoh and on behalf of Egypt, in the midst of them being obstinate and hard-hearted against what God said. So, you know, you here's the plague, here's the problem, here's the issue. And then Pharaoh starts to feel the heat in the kitchen. He's like, Turn the heat off. And then Moses, like, okay, I'm gonna go ask God to turn the heat off. And he would intercede for him every single time, even though during at least one of those plays, Moses was like, I know you're not gonna let us go yet, but I'm gonna still go and intercede for on your behalf and on the people's behalf for God, right? And of course, he was right. Harold, um, Pharaoh, excuse me, hardened his heart again. Um, and then another lesson we can learn is the consequence of sin. Like the those plays was a vivid reminder that you know, sins and obedience, disobedience, excuse me, have consequences, right? Um, Pharaoh's refusal to heed God's command resulted in suffering for his people. I have to keep bringing that up because oftentimes we get a little short-sighted in our decision-making capacity, like um your decisions affect other people. Like, let's even break it down to you know, oh, I'm tired, I don't feel like getting on this beyond call right now. Okay, that's fine. You don't have to. It's it's a plus for us to do it, and it doesn't really necessarily take anything from us, it's just another opportunity. But somebody might have been on this call that needed to see you, that needed to hear your voice, that needed to hear your, you know, smile and uh see your smiling face or just hear your voice in the morning, right? And then encourage them. And then when you were missing and not accountable or not in place, you know, they'd be like, Oh, you know, what happened to them? Are there something going on? They get worried about you because you're not in place, or even with church on Sunday, you know, if we don't go, or if we um have the opportunity to go and we don't go, you know, people people get to missing us, you know. So you know we need to uh as much as we possibly can continue to um share time with each other, share time with the brethren, encourage each other in the Lord because you just have no idea how your presence affects another person. All right, another lesson we can learn is God's mercy and missed judgment. This was a time of judgment for the people of Egypt and for Pharaoh, right? But he shows them mercy over and over and over again. Every time Moses interceded, every time Moses um lifted up, you know, um prayer for them, he showed them mercy, you know, even though they get right back and harden their heart again, he kept showing them mercy. And we talked about the distinction of God's people, but yes, he made a clear distinction between those people and my people. My people live in Goshen. My people have like my people's livestock is still alive, my people have food to eat, my people don't have to worry about flies, my people don't have to worry about lice, my people don't have to worry about those frogs. My people are set up, they just sit there watching the show, eating popcorn, kickback, like ooh, ooh, look what God did this time, y'all. They're having a good time over there in Goshen, you know. Um, and even it got to the point to where during these, as the place continued to escalate, like um, when it was talk about the plague of the hell, you know, it said the people who feared the Lord in Egypt, they took in their uh livestock and they told the people who like went into the homes and stuff, but the people who didn't fear the Lord, they left all their uh livestock and everything out, and they didn't try to make any type of preparations, and then of course the destruction came down. So even the people of Egypt, apart from the fact that Pharaoh wasn't listening, you know, they started to heed and listen because they see all this stuff happening to them, right? And then it says the testimony of God's power, the plague served as a testimony to God's power and might not only to the Egyptians but to the entire world. Um, I was talking about it yesterday in the breakout rooms, like God He could have just pulled out Egypt. I mean, I pulled out the Israelites, just pulled them straight out, and it couldn't have to go through all of this. But I believe he did it just to in a progressive manner, not only for the Egyptians to see his power, but for the Israelites to see his power because we uh have heard about God, we've heard about the miracles, but have we seen different things that he has done? No, now we are seeing the things that have happened, now it's being unfolded for us. Now God is showing his power and his might on our behalf, and if we were to trust him and take him at his word and take him at his what we are seeing, then we could get more from him, right? But of course, we know as we progress in this story that is not how it ended up for the Israelites. They on turn to murmuring and complaining, and then it says a call to humility. So Pharaoh's pride and refusal to humble himself before God led to his downfall and also his people. You know, I can't I gotta keep bringing that up. His decisions affected a whole nation of people, right? So humility is uh essential to our relationship with God, like it says in more than one place in scripture on you know, the um humble, right? You get grace, he gives grace to the humble, he resists the proud. You know, those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. You know, if you're gonna get be put up on a pedestal or on a light stand, let God be the one to put you up. Don't put yourself up because when you try to put yourself up, then you are you know exalting yourself, and then you might be ashamed. But if somebody next, like how it talks about the scripture, when you go into um a banquet or a wedding feast, don't take the highest say a seat, take the lowest seat that way. It when somebody comes in, like the um person who is running the feast and he sees you in the lowest seat, and then he will bring you up to the top and you have honor. But if you put yourself in the highest seat, then the other person will come in and say, Well, no, I have somebody that's more important to you, and then put that person in that seat, and then you begin to have shame. Well, we don't want to do that, we want God to put us up, we want God to promote us, we want God to show show up and show out on our behalf, you know, and he always does, and just and makes us look like you know, a rose, just shining, just bright and illuminated, and people don't understand how we get the things we get, and they all don't understand how we're able to do the things we can do because God is got us. It's real simple. God is got us, and we don't have to worry about it. We don't have to fight the way you fight, we don't have to stress, we don't have to struggle. I just give it to him and let him handle it, and he always does in grand style. And the last um lesson from this is the assurance, hallelujah, of God's promises. So throughout Exodus chapter 9, God's promises to deliver his people are evident, you know, despite the challenges, he remains faithful to his word, right? So this assures us that God's promises are sure. We can trust him to fulfill his promises in his perfect timing. I'm sure there's a situation that we're all facing because you know, I was just thinking about like this um trip that just happened going to Paris, right? You know, it was dropped into Pastor Raquel's heart in 2020 that the first trip she should take was in 2024, the next trip she can take is 2026. It's been prayer and preparation and all kinds of things happened all the way up to this trip. Well, now the trip has taken place, now the trip is manifested. Now we don't need faith for that anymore because it's a done deal, it's in the reality, right? So now what happens? You've got to put your faith out there again for something else. Like they've already working towards the next trip that they're planning in 2028. Is their faith is active and working for something else? So once you receive the promise of God in the natural own, whatever area in your life you're believing for, don't let that faith just sit there dormant and catching, you know, getting collecting dust. Put that faith out there for something else. Because I'm there sure, I'm sure there's something else that you need in your life, or there's somebody on that's around you that needs something that you can be using your faith and believing for them for. So just know that God is faithful, he is true, he's watching over us, he's taking care of us, he is an awesome father, he will never leave us, never forsake us. He is just gonna take care of his children no matter what. And guess what? We're with him, so we don't have anything to worry about. No matter the one storm, no matter the mountain, no, no matter what we're going through, praise God. God has got us, and with that, I will see.