Why did God send ten plagues on Egypt?

In Exodus 7-11, God strikes Egypt with ten devastating plagues. Dr. Toby Holt explains that the plagues were far more than natural disasters — they were a contest between God and Egypt's false gods. Each plague struck at a specific Egyptian deity, exposing them as powerless before the living God. Through it all, God set His own people apart — Goshen was spared the swarms, and Israel had light while Egypt sat in darkness. Pharaoh's heart only hardened. The plagues reveal God's justice against rebellion and His mercy toward His own.

Questions this study answers:

1. Why did God send ten specific plagues? To judge Egypt's false gods and prove that He alone is the LORD. Each plague toppled an idol Egypt trusted.

2. Why did Pharaoh's heart stay hardened? Because he kept refusing to humble himself before God, even as the judgments mounted. His pride would not bend.

3. What do the plagues reveal about God? Both His justice and His mercy — judgment on stubborn rebellion, and protection for His covenant people. "And the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, when I stretch out My hand on Egypt and bring out the children of Israel from among them." — Exodus 7:5 (NKJV)

Dr. Toby Holt is President of New Geneva Theological Seminary, and his sermons have been downloaded more than 1.9 million times on SermonAudio. Find more verse-by-verse Bible teaching at newgeneva.org; support this ministry at newgeneva.org/give.

In part four of our series in Exodus, we're reviewing the ten plagues of Egypt.

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Why did God send these terrifying plagues?

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And why did it take ten of them before Pharaoh let God's people go?

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In today's study, we'll address these questions and more.

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This morning, we are going to study the ten plagues of Egypt.

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Specifically, we're going to look at the ten plagues that God sent as judgment upon Pharaoh and his house

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due to Pharaoh's oppression of God's people.

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Now, as I said at the outset this morning, God's people had been oppressed.

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They had been in bondage to Pharaoh and to the Egyptians.

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They were made to do their labor, and the labor had gotten more difficult.

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When the people had cried out and God had sent Moses,

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and Moses had stirred up some trouble with the people, Pharaoh's reaction was,

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Aha! He says, if they got all this time to talk about going off and worshiping their God,

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and they got all this time to have these discussions,

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well, then they'd have idle hands. I'm going to put them to further use. Pharaoh made life more

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difficult for them, and he didn't care whether they liked it or not. Now, God had heard the cries

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of his people as they reacted under the boot of Pharaoh, and his response, in part, is what we're

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looking at today, the sending of these plagues. Now, before we go any further with this Old

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testament text let me ask you a question can you think of i don't know any any new testament book

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in the bible that also talks about plagues and judgment does any book come to mind what do you

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got revelation revelation i'm glad no one said philemon or anything like that revelation yes

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revelation has plagues revelation has much of the things we see in today's text revelation has

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blood. It has flies. It has locusts. It has hail. It has death. In Revelation, we see very similar

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judgments against very wicked people. Wicked people in the future who will persecute God's

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people just as they did in the past here in the book of Exodus. Now in that future time, whenever

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it should be, in Revelation 6, before the trumpets and bowls and seals really all get poured out on

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the nations. We read this. We read of the persecution. Revelation 6. I saw under the altar

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the souls of those who have been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had

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maintained. They called out in a loud voice, cried out much as they did in Exodus. How long,

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sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?

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Very similar cry to what was going on in the book of Exodus. Then each of them was given a white

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robe they were told to wait a little longer until the full number of their fellow servants their

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brothers and sisters were killed just as they had been just like the book of exodus the book of

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revelation which describes future events describes this time of persecution where god's elect god's

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people god's chosen are being persecuted by the wicked nations now guess what in both cases

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god will respond in both cases god responds and when he responds it's supernatural and it's

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overwhelming in both the book of exodus and the book of revelation you see this depiction of god

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saying all right time to roll up my sleeves here and everybody's going to know there's a god in

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israel everyone's going to know there's a god over my people what i'm going to do is going to be

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supernatural so that no one mistakes where it's coming from and what i'm going to do is going to

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be overwhelming. I have been patient, but there's a season when that patience is expended. And that's

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what we see in Exodus, and that's what we see in Revelation. Now, just stopping there for a moment.

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Pretend you're an Egyptian. Pretend you're Pharaoh. Pretend you're one of these people in the future

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who has God's judgment poured out upon you. Now, maybe after one plague, you're like, oh boy,

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this is kind of unpleasant. Maybe after two plagues, you're like, boy, this is really something

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else. By the time you get to three, four, five plagues, by the time you get to some seals and

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bowls, you would think at some point that even the most resistant sinner would say, oh God, I've

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no more. I've had all I can take. You're awesome. I'm not. You'd think that Pharaoh and the Egyptians

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or the people in this future context of Revelation at some point would repent and say, my bad.

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I blew it. You're amazing. And I'm done fighting against you. Now, does that happen? Not so much.

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Not so much. Not in Exodus, not in Revelation.

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Pharaoh doesn't try to make

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peace with God. At various times he says,

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Moses, you go tell him and ask him to bless

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me. But he never tries to make peace with God

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just as God's enemies in the future won't make

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peace with him in Revelation. Instead, what do they

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do? Well, read Revelation.

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They double down on their

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hatred. Now, they try to hide from them. They

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call down rocks upon themselves so they don't have to look

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at them. But they never stop hating them. They never

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stop resisting them. They double down

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on their hatred until they are destroyed.

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It's very similar to what we see in Exodus.

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They'll ultimately culminate in the washing away of people

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and the waves and the tumult of the Red Sea.

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Everything we're reading today when we talk about the ten plagues,

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in one sense it's history, absolutely, it is history.

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But it's also future.

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Because God likes to do that.

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God likes to use circumstances and events in the past

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to anticipate and point forward to something that is coming in the future.

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All right. Let's return to verses 1 through 7 of today's reading. I'm going to briefly recap them,

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then we'll move into the balance of chapter 7. So again, chapter 7 started with the Lord saying to

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Moses, see, I've made you as God to Pharaoh, and Aaron, your brother, is going to be your prophet.

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You shall speak all that I command you. And Aaron, your brother, shall tell Pharaoh to send the

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children of Israel out of his land. And I will harden Pharaoh's heart and multiply my signs and

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my wonders in the land of Egypt. But Pharaoh will not heed you so that I may lay my hand on Egypt

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and bring my armies and my people, the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great

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judgments. And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord when I stretch out my hand on Egypt and

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bring out the children of Israel from among them. So then Moses and Aaron did just so, just as the

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Lord commanded them, so they did. Moses was 80 years old and Aaron 83 years old when they spoke

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to Pharaoh. I wonder, have you ever heard of the term proxy war? You ever heard the term proxy

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war? Does that ring any bells for you? I hope it does. Honestly, if you're a student of the 20th

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or 21st century, you see that most wars fought are actually what you call proxy wars. See, proxy wars

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would have two large dominant combatants, but they don't engage in direct conflict.

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they engage in conflict indirectly oftentimes using a smaller set of nations smaller powers

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as their primary combatants with that said many commentators theologians look at this text today

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they look at this dispute between moses and pharaoh and they recognize rightfully that moses

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and pharaoh charlton heston and yule brenner they're not the battle that matters they're

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God's proxies, or at least Moses is God's proxy, as he tells him in verse 1, I've made you as God

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to Pharaoh. They're proxies in a spiritual war fought between, you could say, God and the devil,

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heaven and hell. There's a theologian many Presbyterians are familiar with. His name is

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James Montgomery Boyce. He made the point clear, so I'll just quote him. He said, this battle pits

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Jehovah, the true God, against all the false gods of the Egyptian pantheon, backed by the host of

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fallen angels who had turned from God as part of Lucifer's rebellion. The conflict we're reading

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about today, don't ever buy into the idea that this is Moses versus Pharaoh. They're like the

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least important parts of the equation. There is something larger going on. This is about God,

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God combating, defeating the combined forces of Egypt and hell alike. With that said, in verse 1,

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as we just noted, God tells Moses that you're going to be my proxy. I've made you as God to

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Pharaoh. That doesn't mean I've made you God. I've made you as God. You're my proxy. You're going in.

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You're my ambassador. When you speak, you speak what I tell you to speak. He says that here in

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verse 2. You shall speak all that I command you. Now, does that mean he should add to that and

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speak other things? No. Speak everything I tell you to speak. Don't forget anything. Don't leave

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anything out. Don't water down the message. You're my proxy. I'm making you as God when you talk

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to pharaoh now after he tells moses to go do this which is not the first time he's told moses to do

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this but after he tells him that he reminds him of something that he said in the past he said but

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here's the thing moses i'm gonna have you go tell pharaoh these things so you'll go do it but when

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you do it just be prepared he's not gonna listen pharaoh's not gonna respond to what you say and

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then God tells Moses, but you know what, that's okay. Because honestly, my glory is going to be

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manifested far more in light of his rebellion than even if he was to yield right now. Because I'm

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going to show my signs and wonders, not just to him, but to the entire nation, and by extension

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to the entire world. The entire world will know on the basis of what we're about to do and what's

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about to happen, that there is a God in Israel. And he is greater than the whole pantheon of

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egyptian gods all right let's see what happens next moses is going to travel to pharaoh in verses

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8 through 13 and you're going to see this encounter it's the second encounter they've

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had in the past couple chapters so verse 8 then the lord spoke to moses and aaron

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saying when pharaoh speaks to you saying show a miracle for yourselves then you shall say to aaron

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take your rod and cast it before pharaoh and let it become a serpent so moses and aaron went into

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pharaoh and they did just so just as the lord had commanded and aaron cast down his rod before pharaoh

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and before his servants and it became a serpent but pharaoh also called the wise men and the

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sorcerers so the magicians of egypt and they also did in this manner with their enchantments

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for every man threw down his rod and they became serpents but aaron's rod swallowed up their rods

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and pharaoh's heart grew hard and he did not heed them just as the lord had said all right

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what's going on with these serpents and rods what is going on with this this is somewhat unique

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this doesn't happen every day you don't have prophets throughout the old testament just

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throwing down their rods and becoming different things what's going on with the serpents and

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the rods what's taking place why a snake at all let's start there why a snake god says throw down

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your rod, Aaron, throw down your rod before them, and it's going to become a serpent. Why a serpent?

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Why a serpent? I mean, that's a sign of evil, right? That's from the garden. Why a serpent?

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Well, here's the thing. If you understand something about the Egyptians, you should

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understand this. Serpents were signs of divinity and authority in Egypt. Divinity and authority

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mixed. To prove that, you ever look at old hieroglyphics or what have you, your archaeology,

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And they depict pharaohs and those in regal positions in Egypt.

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Well, the pharaohs in particular, sometimes they would wear helmets or headdresses that were golden.

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And on the front, on the forehead of many of these headdresses in these hieroglyphics, you'll see what?

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A snake's head.

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A cobra's head in most cases.

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And the reason why is because the snake was the sign of authority, of divinity even.

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And so they wore it on their forehead.

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Now, the average Shmoe in Egypt didn't do that.

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Why?

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Because he had no authority, no divinity.

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The pharaohs did.

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So you have God, and he tells Moses, Aaron,

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throw down the staff, it's going to become the serpent.

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And then guess what?

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The other guys did the same thing.

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They also became serpents.

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But the serpent from Aaron's staff

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then devours the other serpents.

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Now, if you understand through Pharaoh's eyes

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what the serpents, what they represented, you understand the message that was communicated to

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Pharaoh in that moment. In that moment, God was saying, I'm number one. Not you, not the other

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gods in Egypt, lowercase g, me. My serpent, my sign of authority devours yours. The collective

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law to yours. This must have been quite a scene to behold. Now, another question that comes up

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when we think about this is, hold the phone here. Can like wicked dudes just do magic?

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Just something, a sorcerer's boom, you know, there's a snake. Well, all right, let's just

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very briefly, what went on there? What went on there? I believe that what God was doing was

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allowing this counterfeit magic to bear legitimate fruit in order to teach Pharaoh a lesson.

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You know the story, the witch of Endor, right? Saul goes to consult the witch at Endor and she

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conjures up samuel and what's her reaction to that shock it's like oh my goodness this doesn't

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usually work this doesn't work this way what is going on here god used in that case counterfeit

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pagan means to break through to these pagan individuals about his own authority and power

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and his word and the like well this is not really that dissimilar god utilizes means to achieve this

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in because it was an object lesson that pharaoh and the others would learn from all right now

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that said now we're getting into the heart of the plague time plague time is about to happen god is

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ready to kick it kick it up a notch let's look at verses 14 through 25 verse 14 so then the lord

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said to moses pharaoh's heart is hard and he refuses to let the people go so go to pharaoh

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in the morning when he goes out to the water and you shall stand by the river's bank to meet him

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And the rod which was turned into a serpent you shall take in your hand.

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And you shall say to him, The Lord God of the Hebrews has sent me to you, saying, Let my people go, that they may serve me in the wilderness.

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But indeed, until now, Pharaoh, you would not hear.

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Thus saith the Lord, By this you shall know that I am the Lord.

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Behold, I am going to strike the waters which are in the river with the rod that is in my hand, and they shall be turned to blood.

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And the fish that are in the river shall die, and the river shall stink.

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and the Egyptians will loathe to drink the water of the river.

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Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying,

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Say to Aaron, Take your rod, stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt,

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over the streams, the rivers, the ponds, over all their pools of water,

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so that they may become blood.

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And there shall be blood throughout all the land of Egypt,

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both in buckets of wood and pitchers of stone.

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And Moses and Aaron did so, just as the Lord had commanded.

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And so he lifted up the rod and struck the waters that were in the river

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in the sight of Pharaoh and in the sight of his serpents.

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and all the waters that were in the river

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turned to blood

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and the fish that were in the river died, the river stank

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the Egyptians could not drink the water from the river

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and so there was blood throughout all the land

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of Egypt

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then the magicians of Egypt did so with their enchantments

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and Pharaoh's heart grew hard

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and he did not heed them as the Lord had said

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and the Pharaoh turned and went into his house

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neither was his heart moved by this

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so all the Egyptians dug around the river

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for water to drink because they could not drink the water

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from the river and seven days passed

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after the Lord had struck the river.

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All right, before we explain these verses

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from this first plague,

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I want to remind us of something.

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As you may or may not recall,

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and having studied Exodus in the past,

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the first nine plagues prior to the final one,

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prior to the Passover,

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the first nine plagues follow a similar structure,

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a similar pattern.

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Specifically, the first nine plagues,

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there are three sets of three,

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and each set of three starts and finishes the exact same way.

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Let me explain what I mean.

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The first plague, the first plague in each set of three

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involves Moses going down to meet Pharaoh at the river.

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The first plague in each set of three across the three sets

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involves Moses going down to meet Pharaoh at the river in the morning

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where Pharaoh is doing what?

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Is he just showering up for a good day of pharaohing or something like that?

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No, he's there to do what?

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To worship pagan gods.

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Pharaoh gets up to go and to commune with the lizard gods and the fish gods and the like.

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That's what he's doing, and that's where Moses meets him,

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in this location at the first of each of these three sets.

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With that said, the second plague in each of these three sets

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involves Moses meeting Pharaoh on his home turf,

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in Pharaoh's own courts or chambers, so to speak.

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And then finally, the third plague in the three sets,

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it comes in its own good time.

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It comes in its own good time.

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There's no warning really given to Pharaoh.

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The plague just shows up.

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So this is nine plagues, three sets each.

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They all repeat the cycle.

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Now, the plague we saw in verse 14, to start all this,

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involved the water turning to blood.

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And that happens, again, at the moment when Pharaoh is worshiping the river gods.

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There was a beast called Khnum, K-H-N-U-M,

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who was considered to be the guardian of the Nile.

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The guardian of the Nile.

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Now, there were other river gods as well.

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You had alligators, you had fish.

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There were all sorts of Egyptian gods that had jurisdiction for different things.

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There could be gods for specific areas, specific creatures, or what have you.

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Different kind of creepy deities that represented creepy, creeping things on the earth.

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So Pharaoh goes to worship just these horrendous things, really, to commune with them.

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And as he's soaping up there, the God of Israel turns the Nile into blood and kills all of its creatures.

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Now why that?

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Well, what he's doing with the blood, it's the same thing as when Aaron's staff swallowed up the snakes from Pharaoh's magicians.

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In both cases, what's being shown here is that Pharaoh's false gods are no match for the God of heaven.

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If the God of heaven says, all right, so Pharaoh, you're there worshiping Canoom, the guardian of the Nile.

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Guardian of the Nile, that sounds pretty impressive.

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You know, the guardian of the Nile.

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Well, let me show you something.

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Let's see how good he guards it.

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Because I'm going to turn it to blood.

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You just watch.

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Boom.

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All of a sudden, the waters turn to blood.

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the fish die. It starts stinking there. Let me ask you, how powerful then, if you're Pharaoh,

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is this guy Canoom? How powerful are the other gods of the fish and the like, Sirpak, Neith,

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Hathor? There's a bunch of them. How powerful were they really? When the God of Israel rolls in and

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says, all of them, all of these fake false things, they are worthless. And they do not compare to my

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power, because with a word, the rivers and all the waterways in Egypt can be turned to blood.

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This was a spiritual depancing, so to speak, of the Egyptian gods.

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The very ones Pharaoh's there to commune with are proven to be worthless at this moment.

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This is on top of the one snake eating the other snakes.

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See, a message should have been given to Pharaoh, each plague, really,

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that the false gods that we're supposed to protect,

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you know, when you have locusts and flies, all these different things protecting the crops,

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guess what?

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The Egyptians had fertility gods, Osiris and the like.

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They had things that were supposed to guard the crops.

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And God continually, systematically, time and time again sends plagues with the intention of proving to Pharaoh and all the Egyptians that the gods of these things were worthless.

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That God himself, whether it's rivers or crops or anything, he had no limits on his jurisdiction.

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Every Egyptian god fell across these ten plagues.

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Every one of them.

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Their power was proven to be false.

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And that's how God did it.

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The plagues weren't simply a function of, boy, I really got a beat up on Pharaoh here.

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Gosh, I did the boils. What's next? Hail. I know, hail.

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That's not the way it worked.

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What God was doing was systematically using this host of different things

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to prove to Pharaoh and the Egyptians and the Israelites and the whole world

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that these gods of limited jurisdiction, they were nothing.

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They were nothing.

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That God could impact the entirety of the created realm with just a word.

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Using these old codgers, these two guys.

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And scripture goes out of its way to tell us how old they are.

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These two guys are the source of all this.

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And it's breaking Pharaoh's brain throughout the process.

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And we'll see that more as we get towards plague number nine.

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All right, let's move ahead a little bit.

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We've talked about the blood.

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We'll skip past the frogs and the lice.

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They accomplished largely the same point I just illustrated.

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Let's get forward to a plague that we can all relate to in South Mississippi.

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What plague do you think that is?

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Whoever said flies, you get the bonus points.

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Flies!

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Let's look at chapter 8, verse 20 through 24.

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And the Lord said to Moses,

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Rise early in the morning and stand before Pharaoh as he comes out to the water.

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See what's going on here?

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This is the first in this other cycle.

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Rise in the morning, stand before Pharaoh as he goes to the water.

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Then say to him, Thus saith the Lord,

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Let my people go, that they may serve me, that they may worship me.

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Or else, if you will not let my people go,

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behold, I will send a swarm of flies on you and your servants,

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on your people, and into your houses.

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The houses of the Egyptians shall be full of swarms of flies and also the ground on which they stand.

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And in that day I will set apart the land of Goshen, in which my people dwell,

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that no swarms of flies will be found there,

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in order that you may know that I am the Lord in the midst of the land.

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I will make a difference between my people and your people.

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Tomorrow this sign shall be.

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And so the Lord did so, and thick swarms of flies came into the house of Pharaoh,

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into the servants' houses, into all the land of Egypt.

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The land was corrupted because of the swarms of flies.

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What was different in this plague than the previous ones,

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for those who've read these earlier chapters?

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Well, in the first three plagues that God brought upon Egypt,

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you get a sense that all of Egypt, the land, was affected in some way.

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Now, the Israelites lived in the land of Goshen,

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which was away from the River Nile,

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and may well have been away from some of the frogs and some of the other stuff.

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With that said, beginning with this fourth plague of flies,

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something changed in how it was announced.

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When God declares the plague, he says, all right, Pharaoh.

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He says, I see what's happening.

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I bring in the frogs, and I bring in this other stuff,

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and you're dismissing that.

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You're saying, this must be some natural explanation, right?

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And that's what would happen here.

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If there was a swarm of frogs in our community,

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our first reaction wouldn't be that God did something.

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We'd look to our scientists who would give us some scientific explanation for why frogs.

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if giant hail hit us in the next few days, again, we probably wouldn't thank God. That would not be

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our first reaction. We would think, well, boy, some odd meteorological event that surely has

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an explanation. Well, the people in Egypt were doing the same thing. They were arguing this

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stuff away. This is some freaking nature thing. Nature, I don't know, it's a once in a lifetime

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sort of thing. It's like the cicadas that come out every 18 years and frighten everybody. It's

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something rare. Well, Pharaoh may have bought into that. And so God says, ah, Moses, well,

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tell you what, tell you what, I'm going to send a plague now, and you just watch. When this plague

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comes, guess who it's going to target? It's going to target your people. It's going to target you.

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It's going to target your servants. It's going to target the Egyptians. But my people, they're

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going to be free of it. There ain't going to be a fly in the land of Goshen. Now let me ask you a

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question. When June rolls around, and the deer flies show up, and you're out on your back deck

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trying to barbecue or whatnot, can you just tell the fly, you stay over there. You stay in the yard

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and I'll stay on the deck and all is good. Is that going to work? Well, I wish it worked that way,

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honestly. You know, the two things I hate most, celery and deer flies. They're neck and neck.

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With that said, I could tell them all day, you stay there, I'll stay here. We'll work this out

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this way. It isn't going to happen. Why? Because that's not the way it works. With that said,

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in Egypt. If the flies swarmed everything in the world except where the Israelites were,

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you'd think that would be instructive, pedagogical. You'd think that would be a teaching

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mechanism for Pharaoh and for the people. That's what it was intended to be. You know, God's people

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are not the focus of God's wrath. God's people are not the focus of God's wrath. You know,

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earlier we talked about the book of Revelation. We talked about the evildoers of that age and

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the unregenerate hard-hearted individuals well god knows to make a line of demarcation between his

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own and those are enemies with his throne in revelation 14 we read this if anyone worships

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the beast in his image and receives the mark on his forehead or on his hand he himself will drink

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the wine of the wrath of god which is poured out in full strength into the cup of his indignation

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Whether you're talking about an Egypt and this plague with the flies,

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whether you're talking about the future and the marks of the beast and whatever,

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the point is this, that God's wrath is not upon his covenant people.

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It's not.

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You think about the flood.

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The greatest sign of God's wrath the world has ever seen to date was the flood.

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And yet the only righteous individual in his family were spared.

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Who was that?

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Noah.

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You know, when Sodom and Gomorrah were sizzled to a crisp, Lot and his family escaped.

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When the Babylonians march in to Jerusalem, burn it to the ground, there is a spiritual remnant

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of God's own people that survives. Just like in the book of Revelation or these other examples,

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God's wrath and exodus was targeted wrath against his enemies and not poured out in a punitive

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fashion upon his beloved. All right, I'm going to fast forward a little bit. We have time really

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to look at one more plague before we wrap up today. Let's look at the ninth plague. The ninth

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plague which is what anyone know darkness that was excellent the ninth plague darkness next week

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we're going to look at the tenth plague next week we're going to look at the passover and everything

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that happened on that night but today let's talk about this darkness what's going on with darkness

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how bad can that be we might say to ourselves after the flies and the boils and the hail you

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know maybe a dark room sounds kind of nice so what's going on here well let's look at chapter

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10 verses 21 through 29 then the lord said to moses stretch out your hand towards heaven that

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there may be darkness over the land of egypt darkness which may even be felt that's a sign

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this is not normal darkness darkness that may even be felt and so moses stretched out his hand

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towards heaven and there was thick darkness in all the land of egypt for three days they did not see

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one another, nor did anyone rise from his place for three days. But all the children of Israel

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had light. All the children of Israel had light in their dwellings. Then Pharaoh called to Moses

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and said, Go, serve the Lord. Only let your flocks and your herds, let them be kept back.

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Let your little ones also go with you. But Moses said, You must also give us sacrifices,

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burnt offerings. They might sacrifice the Lord our God. Our livestock will also go with us. Not a

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hoof shall be left behind. For we must

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take some of them to serve the Lord our God

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and even we do not know with

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what we must serve the Lord until we arrive there.

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But the Lord hardened Pharaoh's

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heart and he would not let them go.

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And the Pharaoh said to them,

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Get away from me. Take heed of

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yourself. See my face

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no more. For the day you

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see my face, you

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shall die.

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And so Moses said,

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You have spoken well.

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I will

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never see your face again.

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Alright.

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At this point, we're already

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eight plagues deep. All of

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Egypt had seen

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God's power on display. They'd seen blood

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and frogs and lice and boils and

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disease and hail

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and locusts.

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With that said, let's stop to ask

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a really important question.

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Throughout these plagues,

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what did God want Pharaoh to do? That's an easy

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one. What did God want Pharaoh to do? What?

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Let my people go.

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Let them go.

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So here's the next question.

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Why?

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Why did God want the people to set free?

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They were set free to go and worship.

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God's glory is always central to everything God does.

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Never miss that, or you'll misunderstand much of Scripture.

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God's glory is central to every time God moves a finger.

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The reason for letting them be set free or desiring them to be set free

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It wasn't simply for freedom per se, although that was wonderful.

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It was so that they might use that freedom to worship him as he was due.

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Worship was central to why they were let go.

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It was central to why they went into the Promised Land.

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It's central to everything God's done across all the centuries.

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It's central to everything he's doing now, even in Gulfport all these years later.

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Worship is central.

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With that said, the Egyptians, they liked worship too.

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It was just to the wrong things.

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And across the plagues, they had discovered repeatedly

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that the things they were worshiping weren't worthy of their worship.

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Remember, I called it earlier.

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This isn't the most technical term.

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You won't find it in any theological journals.

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But this is a spiritual depancing of Egyptians' gods,

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is what's gone on for nine chapters.

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Every god that they had was supposed to protect them.

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Every god that they had, that they prayed to, they sacrificed to,

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they did all this stuff to, was supposed to protect them

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from things like what was happening in their midst.

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Every last one of them in these local jurisdictions of the river, the waters, and the crops, and so forth,

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was supposed to protect them, and they had all failed.

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With that said, the Egyptians had one God left.

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They had one God left.

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And this God to them was a transcendent God.

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This God to them was not the God over a local jurisdiction, was not God of just the river,

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But the one god they had left in their pantheon of gods was the creator god.

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And this god was not found on the earth.

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Rather, he was the sun god that transcended them all.

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And his name was Amun-Ra.

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Amun-Ra.

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Even after all the other gods had failed.

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Fair and the Egyptians held out that Amun-Ra, you don't mess with him.

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Well, guess what the ninth plague is intended to do?

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You have the sun god, the sun god Amun-Ra, the creator, so to speak,

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from the Egyptians' mindset of everything around them.

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You have the sun god, and God says, ah, you've got one left?

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You've got one you're trusting in?

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Well, let me show you what I'm going to do.

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I'm going to silence the sun god by bringing darkness

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that Amun-Ra cannot penetrate because he doesn't exist.

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And this will not be ordinary darkness.

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This is going to be cloud cover.

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This will be a darkness so dark, you will feel it in your bones.

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Then you try to tell me how powerful Amun-Ra or any other god in Egypt is after I do this.

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So we see the ninth plague.

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The ninth plague brings darkness for three days across all of Egypt,

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in Pharaoh's home, the homes of his servants, everywhere, except where?

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Except in the Israelites' homes.

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It says that there they had light, and that gets to our earlier point,

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that God's plagues were intended against his enemies,

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but he provided the means of security and holding tight his own.

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And we're going to see that next week when we study the Passover.

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The most fearsome plague of them all will descend upon the land,

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and yet God's people will be secured through the blood of the Lamb.

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But that said, when darkness came, when darkness filled the land,

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When Amun-Ra was spiritually depanced, when Amun-Ra is defeated,

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when Amun-Ra can't help them in light of what God is doing,

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when Amun-Ra falls on his face, you know what it does to Pharaoh?

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It breaks his brain.

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He's got nothing left.

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He's ruled out all of his gods.

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They didn't do a thing for him.

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He's got nothing left except his anger.

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And so what does he tell Moses?

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He says, Moses, if I see your face again, you're a dead man.

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If I see your face again, you are a dead man.

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Pharaoh here had been stripped of his reliance on fake gods.

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He'd been stripped of the power of his magicians and sorcerers and the like.

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He had been emasculated in front of all his people.

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All that he had left was that which he clung to the most,

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and that was his sin and his rebellion.

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All he could do here in this last verse

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is shake his fist at Moses and against Moses' God.

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Tell Moses the equivalent of,

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stay off my lawn, never come back.

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Verse 29, Moses tells Pharaoh,

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he says, you don't have to worry about that.

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You and I are never going to meet again.

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That's an ominous last statement

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from a guy whose every word has proven truth thus far.

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It's an ominous last statement.

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You have spoken well, O Pharaoh.

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I will never see your face again.

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What do we make of that last ominous statement?

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Well, we're going to find out next week.

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We're going to find out next week

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because we study the final terrifying plague

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when the angel of death would sweep through the land.

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Let's pray.