(Exodus) Exodus 9:8-17

And then in verse 8, why, we come here to this statement and I'll begin reading. 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. And it shall become small dust in all the land of Egypt, and shall be a boil breaking forth with blames upon man and upon beasts throughout all the land of Egypt.

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 blames upon man, upon beasts. Now, I don't know this, but I assume since this one was done right in the presence of Pharaoh, that Pharaoh was the first one that got the boils, by the way. And verse 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.

And you see, with Pharaoh all the time were these magicians a wise man. They were his counselors, and they got the boils also. You remember, they were able to duplicate the first three, but after that they were not able to.

They were unable to duplicate the one that had to do with the lice upon the dust of the earth. And they now are being infected by one of the judgments. Now, do you notice for the first time, God is touching man as well as beast.

It's affecting man personally, his own physical body. And this, of course, meant that the priests in that day were spotless. They could not serve in the temple with any kind of a breaking out or sickness.

And now the magicians, they take off. Believe me, they're gone. The priests, well, they can't serve.

They're unclean. And so they are having really a holiday as far as all this worship in Egypt. And you can imagine what it was.

I walked over part of the ruins of the city of Memphis. And by the way, practically all the ruins are gone now, but they know something of the extent of that great city that was there. And down one thoroughfare and up another, temple after temple.

I forget how many hundreds of temples, well over a thousand that were in that city. And priests serving at all of them. Now, you can imagine what it did, why it brought to a halt all of that false worship.

And everything slowed down to a standstill. And all the bright lights went off. I noticed reading at the time that they had the strike up at Las Vegas, there on Glitter Gulch, where they probably have more neon lights than any place in the world, I'm told.

And I haven't been through there in years, but I'm told that if you fly over it at night, while you think the sun's coming up, it's so bright. Well, when they had the strike, the lights went out, the hotels closed up, the people left. And it brought a deadness.

It was so startling that they had to settle the strike and begin immediately. Well, you can imagine what's happened here in the land of Egypt. False religion is out of business.

And they all got boils, they can't serve. And so, you have up a sign on all the temples, closed because of sickness. We read now in verse 12, it reveals the condition again of the heart of Pharaoh.

And the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh. You see, God's making him stand to it. Now, even when he himself has boils, and he hearkened not unto them as the Lord had spoken unto Moses.

And the Lord said unto Moses, Rise up early in the morning, stand before Pharaoh, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord God of the Hebrews, Let my people go, that they may serve me. And how many times have we read that God says, Let my people go. And he's not letting them go yet.

You can see his heart is indeed hardened. For I will at this time send all my plagues upon thine heart and upon thy servants, upon thy people, that thou mayest know that there's none like me in all the earth. For now I will stretch out my hand, that I may smite thee and thy people with pestilence, and thou shalt be cut off from the earth.

And in every deed for this cause have I raised thee up, for to show in thee my power, and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth. Now verse 17, As yet exaltest thou thyself against my people, that thou wilt not let them go. Now God says that I'm going to use you, Pharaoh, to demonstrate my power throughout all the earth.

And actually God uses the wrath of man really to praise him. And here is a case of it.