Plagues of Egypt #2

 April 26, 2020

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Let us continue with what the Lord is doing in the book of Exodus, the beginning of Exodus, the plagues. I have to ask a question because it has come to me that there is no such thing in the earth as a random plague, a random pestilence, a random famine. I believe that God is behind every one of these; His hand is in everything. Even if the devil does it, it’s God that released him to do it. And we can see this so very clearly here in the plagues.

We are living in a day of a plague so let’s go back to examine what God was doing in Egypt. What was God after? What was He trying to do? I was thinking of four things; there were at least four things, maybe there were five or six. What did God want to accomplish in those days in Egypt?

1. Manifest His Lordship; manifest YHWH

In other words, to manifest that He is God. He made that very clear in the beginning when He said to Moses, “I didn’t reveal myself as Jehovah to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob,” and yet the word is used. This is not the first time this word appears in the Bible. But He said, “I didn’t really manifest myself in that manner”. So, this is the one purpose. What other purposes are to be accomplished in these plagues?

2. To humble Pharaoh

Whenever you see Pharaoh in these plagues, he represents Satan. So, God is just grinding him down a step at a time. But there was something good that God wanted to accomplish. He wanted to set His people free!

3. Set the people free

There is more. There must be more. We are talking about what God was accomplishing in Egypt. If that was His purposes then, what are His purposes now? We are currently in a plague. So, let’s take it; if those were God’s purposes in the days of Egypt, He must have similar purposes today.

4. Destroy other gods

Is God doing the same thing today? By the way, when we talk about Pharaoh, we are including all of these kingdoms of this world. Not just singling out little old Egypt; Egypt is now just little Egypt. In those days Egypt was a major kingdom; there was nothing more powerful or greater in the world’s domain as the power of Egypt. In fact, Egypt had actually replaced ancient Babylon, I believe, insofar as being a world power at the time. Of course, Babylon is going to come into play again, but there was a very powerful ancient Babylon before Egypt.

Let’s go into these plagues again and I want to make a list of them again, and this time I want to note what is going on with each one.

1. Blood in the Nile
2. Frogs
3. Lice
4. Flies
5. Cattle
6. Boils
7. Hail
8. Locust
9. Darkness
10. Death of Firstborn

We are getting a little bit out of order in my mention of this, but with the death of the firstborn of Egypt, as you will see, that God is taking the firstborn of Egypt. This is the final plague; this is the final one that is going to set God’s people free. Do you know what the firstborn represents in today’s understanding, comparing the firstborn of powerful Egypt (which is this world) with this past and present century? I remember Brother Cecil mention this and I thought, “Oh, I have never thought of that!” The firstborn represents the finest, the best. Even though you may not be the first one that was born, but in typology, in figure of speech, that’s what the firstborn represents – the very best, the finest, the prince, the one that is going to be the king. What are some of the “firstborn” names that you would hear today in America? Kennedy, Bush, Rockefeller, Getty, Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Ford, Gates, Jobs… These big captains, mighty men, billionaires, mighty rulers, Kissinger type of individuals, president type, this is your first born. The princes of these other countries, including these Arabian princes, this is their best, this is their finest. And God is doing something in the final plague here. Even though we haven’t gotten to the final plague, I am going to mention it here because I might forget once I get there.

Another thing too. We were talking about darkness. We might as well just say it here. What are the gods that He is after here? Darkness is coming against the sun. What was the title that Pharaoh had? Re (pronounced Ra). The movies make it very well that when the people come in before Pharaoh and the Pharaoh was called Re. And Re is the god of the sun. Pharaoh was given to believe that he was actually the son of Re, the sun. So, let me just name some of these gods:

1. Osiris, god of life, death and afterlife. The Nile was the bloodstream of the god Osiris. Khnum, the “ram headed god”, source of the Nile.
2. Hapi, and Heqet: The spirit of the Nile, the Frog goddesses of Egypt, both related to fertility and childbirth. The midwives were “servants of Heqet” Frogs are like fish; they lay thousands of eggs; are very fertile and they rapidly reproduce.
3. Set, the earth god and god of the desert, storms, disorder, violence and foreigners. Lice came from the dust.
4. Uatchit, the fly goddess, some relate this plague to Beelzebub the “lord of the flies”.
5. Ptah, Mnevis, Hathor, Amon: Egyptian gods associated with bulls and cows. Incidentally, what god did the Hebrews make an image of after they had crossed the Red Sea and claim that this was the god that had delivered them from Egypt; the golden calf.
6. Sekhmet (goddess of epidemics), Sunu, Isis, Serapis, Imhotep, gods of healing, health and disease.
7. Nut (the sky goddess), Isis, Osris, Seth (gods of agriculture and crop fertility), Set and Shu (gods of storms and atmosphere).
8. Serapia (protector from locusts), also Nut (sky goddess), Osiris (crop fertility), and Set (the storm god).
9. Re, Pharaoh himself. He was considered the to be the son of Re. Egypt also had about 4 other sun gods (Amone-re, Aten, Atum, Horus) and Thoth, their moon god.
10. The death of the firstborn also involves Isis (goddess protector of children) and Osiris (god of the dead).

Let’s look and see again now what happened in these different plagues. Go back and let’s take the second plague here. That would be the plague of frogs. Exodus, chapter 8. Remember now, the Egyptian magicians, they made blood. They put their little rod in another place in the river and they got a little red coming from the end of their little rod. So, they made blood and for some reason they were able to make frogs.

8 And the Lord spake unto Moses, Go unto Pharaoh, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Let my people go, that they may serve me.

Here actually, the main reason that was given was, “Let my people go.” That was the main thing that God wanted. And all the others were things that God was also accomplishing. How many of you have ever noticed that, if I may use the term, “God gets mileage” out of everything. Have you ever noticed that? He accomplishes His purposes out of everything that happens. You say, “Well, He is only doing one thing.” No, He is doing a whole lot of things at the same time. Getting something out of this, getting something out of that. Even your troubles. He is getting something out of it. He is getting something out for you, He is getting something out of other people that are involved, He is getting something out for somebody else that gets involved. So, he said, “Let my people go.”

² And if thou refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite all thy borders with frogs:

So, there is a warning. Sometimes these things happen and Pharaoh is not given any warning at all. But here he is given fair warning. “Let them go or you are going to be covered with frogs.” How would you like to have frogs everywhere? All over your bed, all over everything. You are going to go eat breakfast and the frogs are in your cereal bowl; you open your cupboard and they jump all over your table at you. You go walking across the room or across your yard and are stepping on and smashing frogs under your feet everywhere you go. It is something really nasty.

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:

In other words, where you are cooking your meals and making your bread. Everywhere. Imagine waking up in the morning and you open your eyes and, “Croak, ribbit, ribbit.” You would have about 40 of them on your bed making that awful noise.

⁴ And the frogs shall come up both on thee, and upon thy people, and upon all thy servants.

⁵ And the Lord spake unto Moses, Say unto Aaron…

Now remember, at this time it is Aaron stretching out his rod.

… Say unto Aaron, Stretch forth thine hand with thy rod over the streams, over the rivers…

There was mainly one river and that was the Nile.

…and over the ponds, and cause frogs to come up upon the land of Egypt.

⁶ And Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt; and the frogs came up, and covered the land of Egypt.

⁷ And the magicians did so with their enchantments, and brought up frogs upon the land of Egypt.

You know, Satan has a few cheap little tricks that he could do, but this is the end. From the blood and the frogs that’s all that Satan’s people could do. They couldn’t go any further than that. Again, God is bringing an end, not only to the gods, but to these priests, these false priests, showing that they’re limited. They can only go so far. And I believe that God is doing this again today with some of these false religions. You haven’t seen it all yet. You have not seen the full end result. There is more to come, brethren, that is going to bring these things to an end. It is going to be revealed exactly what is going on. The filth will be exposed and that is my prayer.

⁸ Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron, and said, Intreat the Lord, that he may take away the frogs from me, and from my people; and I will let the people go, that they may do sacrifice unto the Lord.

All right, easy victory here. All we have is two plagues and Pharaoh says, “I’ll let them go.” Pharaoh was tired of frogs already. Now, what’s the problem? The frog is your goddess of fertility! So, what’s the problem? “Well, too much of a good thing, too much fertility.”

⁹ And Moses said unto Pharaoh, Glory over me: when shall I intreat for thee…

In other words, he is giving him a choice. “When do you want to be rid of the frogs?” I would have said, “Now!” But listen to this:

…and for thy servants, and for thy people, to destroy the frogs from thee and thy houses, that they may remain in the river only?

So, they are going to be back to live only in the river.

¹⁰ And he said, To morrow…

I would have said, “Now!” But I don’t know what is going on with Pharaoh. He is trying to be Mr. tough guy, I suppose. Or does he still want a few “frog gods” around?

…And he said, Be it according to thy word: that thou mayest know that there is none like unto the Lord our God .

By the way, why didn’t he ask his magicians to get rid of them? They made a few. I don’t think they made very many, but I think they conjured up a few frogs. Why didn’t he say “today”? Well you know, I believe it’s because he tried, he intended to try with his magicians for a little longer so that he could say, “Look, my magicians got rid of them.” But they didn’t. So, I believe that the magicians could make a few frogs, but they couldn’t get rid of them.

¹¹ And the frogs shall depart from thee, and from thy houses, and from thy servants, and from thy people; they shall remain in the river only.

¹² And Moses and Aaron went out from Pharaoh: and Moses cried unto the Lord because of the frogs which he had brought against Pharaoh.

¹³ And the Lord did according to the word of Moses; and the frogs died out of the houses, out of the villages, and out of the fields.

Now, you notice God didn’t vaporize those frogs, nor did he send them all back to the river. The word was that they would stay in the river and that future frogs would not come out of the river and come all over into their houses and into their cooking pans and everything else.

¹⁴ And they gathered them together upon heaps: and the land stank.

Dead frogs. I don’t know if you can imagine piles and piles of dead, stinking, rotting frogs. The dead, stinking frogs are a continuing reminder of the reality of what just had happened. Just like the burning of something leaves the ashes as a reminder of what happened.

¹⁵ But when Pharaoh saw that there was respite, he hardened his heart, and hearkened not unto them; as the Lord had said.

By the way, it’s interesting about Pharaoh hardening his heart. Let me see if I can find this here. It was an interesting little discussion – hardening of Pharaoh’s heart. It’s in plague numbers 1, 3, 5, and 7, where it says that Pharaoh’s heart was hard. On 2 and 4, it says that he hardened his heart. On the one hand it was hard and on the other hand he hardened his heart. In 6, 8, and 9 God hardened his heart. The word uses all these terms. Do they mean the same thing? It’s a little different. In other words, Pharaoh started off with a hard heart; it’s just the way he was. He was stubborn, he was resistant, he was rebellious against God; he thought that he and he alone was the only boss. So, he started off with a hard heart. And as things progressed, as the trials had begun to build up, he hardened his heart even more. And because he had a hard heart, then it says that God hardened his heart. In other words, God said, “I am going to finish you off. I am just going to let you be more stubborn, I am going to add to it because I see that you are not going to yield, you are not willing to be broken, and I am going to take you right down to the bottom; and I am going to add to it.” Yes, God was at work, but the man himself was hardening his heart too while God was working on him. And the final plague here, the death of the firstborn, was the thing that broke him. But, did it really break him? No! Because when everything and everyone was gone and everything was quiet, he still rose up and said, “I am going to get them. I am going to get a vengeance; I am going to kill every last one of those slaves that tried to escape. I’ve got the biggest and the finest army in the world, I am going after them.”

And the interesting thing, when it speaks about the locust, where did the locust go? And where did they come from? It was the east wind that brought in the locust. When you look at the map, the east wind blows in from the Red Sea. Somewhere out there, God stirred up the whole lot of locust and brought them in. Where did the locust go when they were done? A west wind took them right back out, and put all those locusts in the Red Sea, and the word says, “Not one remained.” And the same wording of Pharaoh’s army after they went (east) and into the Red Sea, “Not one remained.” Not one lived. Not one of his finest soldiers. Pharaoh himself was left standing on the shore, seeing dead soldiers washed up. And the Israelites on the other side saw them washed up on the other side. Not one left alive. So, this was the final story of the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart.

The second plague was the frogs. There is not much more that we can say about the frogs.

The third plague is the lice, and sometimes people call them the gnats.

¹⁶ And the Lord said unto Moses, Say unto Aaron, Stretch out thy rod, and smite the dust of the land, that it may become lice throughout all the land of Egypt.

By the way, there is no warning given to Pharaoh. There is no evidence that they went to Pharaoh and said, “Okay, you are done with frogs; you will now have lice.” The KJV says “lice,” but I think it means “gnats.” What is the difference between gnats and lice? Does anybody know? Do you know what gnats are? They are like a little fly but must be larger than lice. Gnats bite you all over.

Now remember the children of Israel had to contend with blood in the water. What they did for water, they went to the edge of the Nile and they would dig like digging a well, and as they dug down the water would filter through the sand and they could get clean water. So, the children of Israel had to put up with that inconvenience also. And the children of Israel had to put up with frogs. Yes, the children of Israel had frogs. They were partakers of these two plagues.

Some of these plagues that are coming upon the land in our time, are going to affect some of the people of God. But there comes a point in time when God says, “Now, I am going to separate.”

I believe the children of Israel also had to contend with these gnats or lice.

¹⁷ And they did so; for Aaron stretched out his hand with his rod, and smote the dust of the earth, (this is earth, carnality rising up) and it became lice (or, gnats) in man, and in beast; all the dust of the land became lice throughout all the land of Egypt.

¹⁸ And the magicians did so with their enchantments to bring forth lice, but they could not: so there were lice upon man, and upon beast.

¹⁹ Then the magicians said unto Pharaoh, This is the finger of God…

They had knowledge, “Our god, (i.e. their Satan) or whoever we follow, he can’t do this. But this is the finger of Moses’s God.”

…and Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he hearkened not unto them; as the Lord had said.

So, Pharaoh let it go; he didn’t ask Moses to get rid of them or anything else. He just put up with it.

Now we come to flies.

²⁰ And the Lord said unto Moses, Rise up early in the morning, and stand before Pharaoh…

Now they (Moses and Aaron) are giving a warning to Pharaoh. Now they are going to contend with Pharaoh again. Evidently, Pharaoh had a habit of getting up and getting his bath in the Nile River, the first thing in the morning. He would go down there and do his morning chores.

…lo, he cometh forth to the water; and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Let my people go, that they may serve me.

Pharaoh is getting a consistent message. God is not changing His mind. “I want my people to go. I want them out of here. I don’t want them to just go for a little while, I don’t want them to go for just a little way, I don’t want just the men go, I want the cattle to go, I want everything that they own to go with them.” And God is not changing His mind. Pharaoh often tries to negotiate and compromise. “Well, let’s do it a little bit this way”. Pharaoh could say today, “you can be a Christian, but you don’t have to go to that extreme.” Can’t you compromise a little and fit in with your neighbors a little better. “No”, this is what we believe that our God requires.

So, he goes down to the water.

²¹ Else, if thou wilt not let my people go, behold, I will send swarms of flies upon thee…

In the language of the Bible the word “flies” is not used. It just says that I will send “swarms.” And so, we believe that these swarms were flies. Is there anything else that comes in swarms? Locust do, but that would be later. So, we know that it wasn’t locust. Do bees ever come in swarms? Yes, they do. He is going to send swarms. Something flying; probably flies. Let’s say it was probably flies. But I don’t think these are just flies that do nothing. They have to be flies that do something to cause irritation and problems.

…and upon thy servants, and upon thy people, and into thy houses: and the houses of the Egyptians shall be full of swarms of flies, and also the ground whereon they are.

Did you notice that as the weather warms up, we are getting our black flies now? I noticed it yesterday for the first time. I was outdoors doing some work and I noticed the beginning of these that they call the Adirondack black flies. And I think they are all over New York. I don’t believe they are just Adirondack flies; the flies in Alaska are “seven times” worse. Well, you know we have a saying, “The Adirondack’s salute.” It’s waving your hands in front of your face for keeping flies away from you. Imagine now, how irritable that is. Do you enjoy that when you go outside and these things are all over and trying to bite you? Can you imagine these things being ten times worse? I believe these Egyptian flies are biters, stingers and they were looking to draw blood, whatever kind they were.

²² And I will sever in that day the land of Goshen…

Goshen is where the people of God lived; the Israelite people.

…in which my people dwell, that no swarms of flies shall be there; to the end thou mayest know that I am the Lord in the midst of the earth.

²³ And I will put a division between my people and thy people: to morrow shall this sign be.

So there comes in time, a point of separation regarding plagues… I have not known many believers that have gotten this Corona virus, only a few that I am sure of. But that doesn’t mean that that’s not true. But I believe there comes a time in these present-day plagues, when we will be separated out. We are going to have more plagues, by the way. This corona virus is not the end. I believe we are coming quickly to that place now. I can say that because of the way the world has reacted to this. We have had other plagues but they haven’t reacted the way that they have reacted this time. The world did not react quite this way to Ebola. And Ebola, in my estimation, is far worse than this Corona virus. Ebola had a mortality rate in Africa of 50 percent. If you got it, it was only a 50% chance that you were going to live through it. If untreated, there was almost no chance of survival.[1]

So, we are not at the end of plagues. We are going to have more. I am not going to say we are going to have ten, I don’t know whether we are on number three or what number we are on already; I don’t know. I mean over the course of history there have been many plagues. But they seem to be coming on and the reason I say we are really into the last set of whatever is happening is the way the governments are reacting to this thing. They are really turning the screws to shut things down, even including the world economy. And people are either going to take it or they are going to rebel against it. One way or another, you are going to have more trouble. And then they are saying, “Oh, it’s going to come back again.” Are they going to treat it the same way if it comes back again? If so, they are going to end up totally destroying the whole economy of the world. And Satan would love to see the whole economy of the world destroyed. It’s Satan’s goal to destroy everything that God has made.

Now, we have to believe that if God is going to destroy Babylon or Egypt that He will make provision for His people. We are not going to be destroyed. The children of Israel were not going to destroyed with whatever was destroying Egypt. They were going to have to experience some of the irritation, some of the inconvenience, but they were not going to be destroyed. And by the way, these plagues are actually divided into three different sets of plagues. This is the first set of three down through here and these were affecting the children of Israel. These were irritable, inconvenient. You know, having to go a special way to get your water, digging holes in the ground next the Nile. It wasn’t yet awesome. But they began to get worse. The next three were really hitting them in their health, hitting people, flies, cattle, boils. Now they begin to get more intense, awesome. Anyway, if you can find words how they get increasingly more and more miserable, they are actually in sets of three. And three, by the way, what does the number three mean in God? Fullness. But when you have three repeated three times, you really got the fullness of the fullness. And number ten, of course then is really the fullness of the order It’s a complete set. We count in tens. When you get to ten, you start all over, another ten, and then you are up to twenty. And when you are done with that, you start another one up to thirty. You keep going in the sets of ten until you get to a hundred, and then you can do that again. It’s the full, complete fullness of order. Fullness of order.

²² And I will sever in that day the land of Goshen, in which my people dwell, that no swarms of flies shall be there; to the end thou mayest know that I am the Lord in the midst of the earth.

The word “Lord” again is “I am Jehovah.” He is manifesting Himself as Jehovah.

²³ And I will put a division between my people and thy people: to morrow shall this sign be.

So, he is going down, he is meeting Pharaoh down at the river, but it has nothing to do with what is going to happen at the river.

²⁴ And the Lord did so; and there came a grievous swarm…

Grievous! Maybe that’s the word we should use for this second set – grievous. Inconvenient and irritable, now grievous.

…swarm of flies into the house of Pharaoh…

Pharaoh could not lock them out.

…and into his servants’ houses, and into all the land of Egypt: the land was corrupted by reason of the swarm of flies.

Corrupted. Destroyed. These flies were not just ugly little buzzy things that buzzed around like what we call Cluster Flies, but don’t do any harm. They did something very destructive.

²⁵ And Pharaoh called for Moses…

Now Pharaoh is calling for Moses

²⁵ And Pharaoh called for Moses and for Aaron, and said, Go ye, sacrifice to your God in the land.

In other words, what he meant here, you can add the words if you like for clarification, “Stay in the land of Egypt.” “Don’t leave Egypt. Go out there, have your picnic, have your little party, do your little religious ritual (burn your incense, chant your prayers and count your prayer beads) thing, but I want you back here Monday morning because I am making more brick and I am building more cities. So, you may go out and do your thing.”

²⁶ And Moses said, It is not meet so to do…

It is not proper for us to do that.

…for we shall sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians to the Lord our God: lo, shall we sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians before their eyes, and will they not stone us?

What was Moses saying? He is saying that the sacrifice they are going to do would be very offensive to some of your Egyptian gods. What if we sacrifice a cow or a bull out there? What about your bull god, Apis, I believe was his name? If we do that right here in front of the Egyptians, it would be very offensive. They would be as offended as some of the Islamic or Hindu people would be offended at some of the things, we would do in front of them. And Moses said, “They will stone us. No, that’s not the way we are going to go.” So, Pharaoh is offering a compromise, he is trying to make a deal with them. And he said,

²⁷ We will go three days’ journey into the wilderness, and sacrifice to the Lord our God, as he shall command us.

²⁸ And Pharaoh said, I will let you go, that ye may sacrifice to the Lord your God in the wilderness; only ye shall not go very far away: intreat for me.

“No, you are not going very far. I don’t want you to go beyond where I can go out and catch you again and bring you back.” So again, the devil is saying, “Well, you can get a little bit away from me, but don’t go beyond where I can grab you with a rubber band and pull you back any time I want you back.”

“Intreat for me.” In other words, out of the same breath he is saying, “Wow, pray for me, will you?” In other words, Pharaoh is being hit pretty hard here. And still… Do you see the hardness of his heart? He is still not really ready to give up.

Can you think of something that God has been trying to deal with you about? I am thinking of all kind of things about me. You don’t have to share it. Just think about it. Is there any little realm of area that He is trying to get you to give up? I am thinking of it every day.

²⁹ And Moses said, Behold, I go out from thee, and I will intreat the Lord that the swarms of flies may depart from Pharaoh, from his servants, and from his people, to morrow: but let not Pharaoh deal deceitfully any more in not letting the people go to sacrifice to the Lord.

God did not really want them to just to go out and have a sacrifice and then come back. When He said, “Let my people go,” He meant, “Let Go.” He meant, “Release.” He meant total release from all bondage. So, you have to see the spiritual side of this. What is God doing in the present-day plagues? He really wants us to be loosed from all of our spiritual bondage.

Now, you see, it was done in the natural in those days, so that’s quite easy to see. Maybe it is easy for me to see, but maybe it was not easy for them to see. But in looking back and reading it, it’s plain to me. Why didn’t they see it? How about 50 years from now in heaven and you are looking back and you say, “Man, why couldn’t I see that? Now it looks so plain what God was trying to do with me and I just wasn’t getting it.” I have been like that all my life. I have been known to have a hard head. Janet used to call me a bone-head. You never heard her say that; she only said that in private. But she meant it, and I deserved it.

³⁰ And Moses went out from Pharaoh, and intreated the Lord.

³¹ And the Lord did according to the word of Moses; and he removed the swarms of flies from Pharaoh, from his servants, and from his people; there remained not one.

You find this phrase several times, “There remained not one.” Not one fly. I would like to see God do that in regard to some of my natural dealing with flies and mosquitos – and there remained not one. But my garden is still under the curse, my house is still under the curse; there are still flies. Sometimes I think I got rid of them all, but I find them; more than one is still there.

Rita: You know it’s interesting, the last plague of lice, they didn’t ask to have them taken away. I am wondering if that is why they are still around today. Because it didn’t say, “Intreat for us to remove the lice.”

But God apparently did remove enough of them. It says,

³² And Pharaoh hardened his heart at this time also, neither would he let the people go.

Here we find an example now of Pharaoh hardening his heart. No, it’s not the first. He hardened his heart again with frogs. He hardened his heart again.

The fifth plague – beast.

9 Then the Lord said unto Moses, Go in unto Pharaoh…

Now he is not meeting him out at the river. He is going into his house, his palace.

…and tell him, Thus saith the Lord God of the Hebrews, Let my people go, that they may serve me.

This is a broken record, Pharaoh; it just keeps playing the same thing. I am not going to change what I am saying. I am not going to come and say, “Well, would you just give us a day off? If you won’t let us go, how about every weekend off?” No, Moses is not coming as a union president trying to negotiate a better deal for his labors. He only comes with the same word, “We are going to be free.” Not higher wages, not better working conditions, not better helmets, or anything else to protect us from falling stones. No. Let us go. That’s the word

² For if thou refuse to let them go, and wilt hold them still,

Every time there comes the statement to Pharaoh, “Let them go and if you don’ let them go, here’s what’s going to happen.” Do any of you that have children, did you ever tell your children something like that? “Look, I want you to stop doing that and if you don’t, this is what’s going to happen.” Now, if you carry through on the “IF”, you are consistent. But if you “wishy-wash”, the kids are never going to learn. They will always learn that they can get away with it. Kids learn this. All I have to do is wishy-wash a little bit here, I have to say something sweet, something nice… When dad or mom get over being mad, then I can go ahead and do whatever I want to do. But that’s not the way God is. God is consistent. “Let them go. I am not going to change.”

³ Behold, the hand of the Lord is upon thy cattle which is in the field…

Remember, the cattle, the cow, the bull, these cattle were gods to them also. “I am working on another god. I am going to bring down one more”.

…upon the horses, upon the asses, upon the camels, upon the oxen, and upon the sheep: there shall be a very grievous murrain.

Does somebody know what the murrain is? Did we look that up one time? It was a bad skin condition that affected the cattle. It wasn’t something internal, it was bad sores, grievous sores.

⁴ And the Lord shall sever between the cattle of Israel and the cattle of Egypt: and there shall nothing die of all that is the children’s of Israel.

The children of Israel being slaves, they still lived their lives and they still raised their own cattle and they had sheep. When they all came in with Jacob; he brought them in with his sons and his son’s wives and some grandchildren, seventy souls. When they came in, they brought sheep and cattle with them.

⁵ And the Lord appointed a set time, saying, To morrow the Lord shall do this thing in the land.

⁶ And the Lord did that thing on the morrow, and all the cattle of Egypt died: but of the cattle of the children of Israel died not one.

⁷ And Pharaoh sent, and, behold, there was not one of the cattle of the Israelites dead. And the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and he did not let the people go.

So, by the way, Pharaoh, seeing his cows dying, he sent servants to go over into Goshen to find out what happened to their cattle. And the servants came back and said, “Not a one of them.” Now when it says here that all the cattle of Egypt died, it’s a misinterpretation of what that really says because you find cattle later on that are dying of this and that and the other thing. They are being protected. So, all the cattle of Egypt didn’t die. I think what it should say is, “All of the cattle that died were of Egypt.” Do you understand why I am saying that? Because you are going to find that in the plague of the hail, He told them, “Bring your cattle in.” So obviously there were still cattle alive in Egypt. So, all the cattle that died were of Egypt. Maybe the reversal of the words would have made it a better translation.

Number six – boils on men and beast.

⁸ And the Lord said unto Moses and unto Aaron, Take to you handfuls of ashes of the furnace, and let Moses sprinkle it toward the heaven in the sight of Pharaoh.

So now he is bringing a handful of ashes. It doesn’t say he brought a whole panful. It doesn’t say he brought a whole ton of ashes. It just says he brought a handful. This furnace, incidentally, could be the means of baking their building bricks, the thing that was the source of their painful labors for building Pharaoh’s cities. Interesting that God chose its residue for a plague.

So, Moses had to go into the furnace, dig out some ashes, and then bring the ashes before Pharaoh. So, they are going into his palace again, they are going into his house, and saying, “All right, Pharaoh…”

By the way, I burn wood. Do any of you burnt wood sometimes? What do you do with the ashes? Throw it out. I have a habit of scattering them. It’s good potash, a good fertilizer. So, I scatter them. I like to do it into the wind. Especially when the wind is behind me. If the wind is coming the other way, it comes right back in my face. So, this ash… Hundreds, thousands of tiny pieces go out when you scatter the ashes. And what happened here? it says,

⁹ And it shall become small dust in all the land of Egypt, and shall be a boil breaking forth with blains upon man, and upon beast, throughout all the land of Egypt.

I looked up these “blains”; this is a sore. It’s a sore that becomes a pustule. Do you follow what I am saying? A sore that becomes a pustule. Boils is my description of that. Have you ever had boils? I had some years ago, many years ago, I was a kid and I had some boils. And what is the cause of boils it’s actually Staphylococcus Aureus, a certain type of bacterial infection. It’s a wicked, mean, painful thing. And these boils have a little hard core in them and the only other description that I could find that was similar to this that I remember in my medical training would be smallpox. We have had chicken pox; we all had these diseases when we were children. It was just routine; everybody got measles, chicken pox, mumps, this and that and the other thing. It was routine, every kid got it, and that’s how we became immune; herd immunity. Even regular penicillin wasn’t effective against some of this Staphylococcus that caused these boils, and they left nasty scars, like smallpox.

But I was thinking about the small pox. I have never seen anybody with small pox. It has disappeared; it’s gone off of the earth now. As a public health nurse, I used to give a lot of people small pox vaccinations. And, of course, I had seen the pustules that it made and left a little scar on your arm. We were all given this when we were young. I have to say one nice thing about this vaccine; it really was a good one; it worked. They discovered it when the girls that used to milk the cows in France, would have some little thing, and they would get infected, and then they would be immune from small pox. And small pox was a terrible, terrible plague. Thousands of people would die. They would get these sores all over their body. This is a terrible boil that these people had. I sometimes wonder if they didn’t actually have a smallpox outbreak here in Egypt. Now, listen to this. It says,

¹⁰ And they took ashes of the furnace, and stood before Pharaoh; and Moses sprinkled it up toward heaven; and it became a boil breaking forth with blains upon man, and upon beast.

So, there were beasts here too.

¹¹ And the magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boils, for the boil was upon the magicians, and upon all the Egyptians.

The magicians couldn’t come. They couldn’t move. They had them on their feet, they couldn’t walk. They had them everywhere. The magicians were as sick as anyone else.

¹² And the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he hearkened not unto them; as the Lord had spoken unto Moses.

We still have more to do. We’ve got hail, locust, darkness (appalling plagues), and the first born dying.

So, we have come through the first two sets. First set of three – irritable, inconvenient, nasty, but you can get through. The next three were grievous, they affected the flesh pretty badly – sores, sickness. Now we are ready for the next three (appalling), and finally the last one, and the Passover, which absolutely sets them free.

You know, just two weeks ago, I think, the Jewish Passover was celebrated at its annual time as appointed by God. The other people (“Christians”) did their Easter celebration. But God never told us to keep Easter, it is not a Christian celebration, but comes from pagan origins.

So, praise the Lord. Maybe you can see some more things and share with us. Amen.

[1] If you are interested in looking into these potential plagues in our time, please refer to my web site endtimekingdomny.org and refer to Revelation End Time Studies, sub 3. Potential End Time Disease Plagues (October 2014). Regarding our common annual flu, it is estimated that there are 3-5 million new cases each year, with 350-500,000 resulting annual deaths. The Spanish Flu (1918-1919) resulted in 8.5 million deaths.