Well, happy Saturday and welcome to another edition of the daily Bible podcast. Today is February 1st, 2025 in the year of our Lord. And it's also the day that women's Bible study meets. So if you're a lady and you are not yet planning to do anything between the hours of 10 and 12 this morning, we'd love to invite you to join us. So women's Bible study kicks off. They're studying the book of Ephesians. That's always going to be worth your while. We would love to see you there and Hey, maybe bring a friend or two to that. I know that the women's ministries that Most of the churches I've been in have been pretty robust. The gals love to get together and to do things like this. And so we would heartily encourage that. We'd love to see you join us for our women's Bible study. We're going to talk about good news, a study in the book of Ephesians, and that's happening again today at 10 AM at Grace Church, Frisco. There's also brunch provided. So if you want some something to eat, that's going to be there. All you have to do is register. And if it's too late to register, just show up. I'm sure we will figure things out. We'd love to have you join us no matter what. Okay, that's all I've got. Again, Pastor PJ, in case you're missing him, will be back with us tomorrow, I trust God willing, of course we're always going to say that, as James encourages us we're going to say, if the Lord wills, we will do this or that, and so we trust if the Lord wills, Pastor PJ will be back. But until then, it's just you and I, but that's okay, because we have so much to say. We probably don't want a lot of googly anyway. All right. Let me just fill you in googly. Where did that term come from? Why do we talk about that all the time? One of our people at church, in case you're just catching up with us, called the things that we do at the beginning of the podcast googly. It's the time where pastor PG and I will kind of shoot the breeze, talk about who knows what, whatever AI technology, dating, whatever. And someone called that stuff googly. Now, I don't know if that's a real word, I don't think that it is, maybe it is a word. I know there's a google. com, but I think it just means goofing around. We're not trying to do a whole lot of googly. We're trying to get much more to the, meat of the word. Speaking of that, let's jump in Exodus chapters seven, eight, and nine. Exodus chapter seven. I want to start with something that's a few verses in, Moses is 80 years old. Now remember he's got three acts in his life. Act one, zero to 40, act two, 40 to 80, act three, 80 to 120. It kind of breaks down nicely in that regard. And so Moses now is in act two. He's working on the second part of his life. He's now 80 years old. He's not a young man, but hopefully he's a wise man. He's certainly wiser than he was 40 years ago. But even with this, again, he's still reluctant. He's unsure of himself. He's had, he has to have the Lord really push him and to do so alongside his brother to get him to do the right thing. And so in Exodus chapter seven, god says to Moses, look, I'm making you like myself to Pharaoh. You're going to be my mouthpiece. But notice he says also God's going to harden Pharaoh's heart. And I'm going to multiply my sizes, giving them a preview of what's to come. And this is the beginning of the judgments that plague Egypt. You remember, there are 10 of them. Something to note before we jump into those plagues is that each of these plagues is really a confrontation with a deities of Egypt. Now, if you want to go through in your study Bibles or even just look up some study studies online, they'll tell you some of those deities in particular. But just know on the panoply of Egyptian gods, God is confronting all of them and destroying them all. That's what all of these plagues are intended to show. Yahweh is stronger. He's the true God. The gods that you serve are actually powerless. But in every religion, there's always going to be priests. There's always going to be mediaries between themselves and God. And here you have the sorcerers, the magicians of Egypt. In fact, Paul tells us in second Timothy three, verse eight, these guys, his names are Janice and Jambres. So even though we don't see that here in the old Testament, Paul tells us later, their names were remembered and they were communicated. Second Timothy three, eight, Janice and Jambres. And so that's who we have stepping into the picture here. Pharaoh summons Janus and Jambres to counterfeit what Moses and Aaron do. And so in the first plague, the water turned to blood. Remember, the Nile is their lifeblood. no Pun intended. It's how they do life. They needed water for everything. And so for God to strike them at the jugular Here in the water was a big deal. And you might notice here in verse 25, he did this for seven days. This is not a 24 hour situation here. This is a week long scenario. Now it doesn't take long for someone to die of dehydration or thirst. It only takes a couple of days, as I recall, maybe three days. And so this is a big problem for them. Nevertheless, even though this happens, Janus and Jambres, they counterfeit it. They can do the same, but they can't undo it. And you notice here the work of the enemy trying to help Pharaoh have a hard heart by demonstrating, look, God's not that powerful. You don't need to pay attention to him. Exodus chapter 8 starts us with plague number 2, which is the frogs. And so here, God tells Moses, go into Pharaoh and warn him, let him know what's about to come unless you let the people go. And of course the Pharaoh responds negatively and he unleashes the plague. Verse seven tells us that Janice and Jambreeze also did the same by their secret arts. This is going to be a repeated phrase. And then after the relief takes place, as is going to be a pattern, The Pharaoh hardens his heart against God and consequently Renes on his promise to let them go. And the third plague, you have the gnats. And so this is the first time that they could not produce the gnats. Janice and Jamborees could not mimic it. They could not counterfeit it. They said, this is the finger of God. They're starting to realize, oh no, this is something outside of our magic arts. Even still, Pharaoh's heart was hardened in plague number four. You have the flies. Not too different from the Nats, but still, could you imagine being assaulted by gnats or flies all over the place. This is the first time, though, in verse 22, that God says, I'm going to deliberately set apart the land of Goshen, that is where, of course, the people dwell. You might remember when Joseph brought Jacob slash Israel, and his brothers into the land, and he put them in the city of Goshen, where they could pasture their flocks. Remember, shepherds are an abomination to the Egyptians, for whatever reason, and so they're in Goshen. This is where they're concentrated. And so God says, I'm going to make a distinction in the land of Goshen, where my people dwell, so that no swarms of flies shall be there. Question of course arises, well, does that mean that the prior plagues were afflicting them? And I don't think so. The reason why I think it's implied in this is that God has been protecting them. He's explicitly stating it here, but the fact that the plagues are coming falling upon the rebellious tells me that it's probably not the Israelites. He's probably protecting them. That would make perfect sense. It would be consistent with the way that God is treating them all throughout this whole period. So I think God is protecting them, even though this is the first time that he explicitly says I'm not going to let this happen to them. Okay. Back to the flies. So God sends the flies to them and they respond with, okay, fine, you can go, but you have to stay here. That's what the Pharaoh says. And then Moses responds with, well, we can't do that. You know that your people hate what we're about to do. We can't do that here. We have to go three days journey into the wilderness and sacrifice. However, the Lord tells us we don't know what he wants us to do yet. So we're going to have to wait and trust that he'll tell us when we get there. Pharaoh doesn't like this plan, but he reluctantly agrees to it. He says, Hey, you just can't go that far. Please stay somewhat local. And so Moses said, okay, I'm going to go pray on your behalf. And then we'll see how this goes. However, as you've grown accustomed to verse 32, but Pharaoh hardened his heart this time also, and did not let the people go now really quickly here. I haven't pointed this out, but You kind of get this sense of a back and forth. One time it's Pharaoh hardening his heart, hardening his heart. The other time it's God hardening his heart. It seems like both are taking place almost simultaneously, if not concurrently. And I think that's the point here. What you are meant to see with this is that Pharaoh is an active participant. And yet God is ultimately determining the direction. God is not forcing Pharaoh. Pharaoh is making his own decisions. But God is certainly cooperating with Pharaoh's hardening of heart. Even though he called it at the beginning of chapter 4, we're seeing the evidence here. This is the Pharaoh working himself in this position. He is choosing this. Exodus chapter Exodus chapter nine starts with three plagues, starting with plague. Number five, the Egyptian livestock dying. God warns him, this is what's going to happen tomorrow. And it's exactly what he does, but he preserves his own people. And so they don't experience any loss of livestock. Exodus chapter 9, starting at verse 8 through 12, you have the sixth plague, which is the boils. Moses throws some soot from the kiln into the air, and it falls like fine dust all over the land of Egypt, and boils break out, sores on man, and sores And beast throughout the whole land. This is awful. Can you imagine this? This is what I think Job also suffers with he has boils all over his body. He's using pot shards to scratch it off. And so you have that here in mass. Everybody's getting these boils, but even so, despite the fact that God afflicted the people and the magicians verse 12, but the Lord heart in the heart of Pharaoh, verses 13 and following the rest of chapter nine, you have the seventh plague. The hail. This is interesting because God tells Pharaoh for the first time why this is happening. He says here in verse 16, but for this purpose, I have raised you up to show you my power so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth. You are still exalting yourself against my people and will not let them go. Behold about this time tomorrow, I will cause very heavy hail to fall, such as has never been in Egypt from the day it was founded until now. And so in the next few verses, God warns him through Moses to say, look, this is why you're here. I've raised you up for my purposes. And really we can say that for any human authority. Any authority whatsoever is God's ordination. He is raising up rulers. He's bringing them down. Proverbs 21, 1 says, The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord. He turns it wherever he will. God's the one at work behind every ruler in every human institution. Now, does that mean he's responsible for the evil? It does not, but it does mean that God is in control such that we could never say he must have missed this, or this was a mistake or he didn't realize that what was happening would happen. No, God knows he's planning all things, which means we ought to trust him. Even with evil leadership, evil rulers. I mean, even if you have a good one in the office, as good as they can be anyway, this side of heaven, we're trusting the Lord and not the leader. God warns him and says, look, here's what you ought to do. And of course, Pharaoh and Egypt seem not to respond to that warning, because you have in verse 25, the hail struck down everything that I was in the field in all of the land of Egypt, both man and beast. This is the first time you have man dying from one of the plagues, at least that we know of. It's possible that someone died in one of the previous plagues, but it seems like God kept them alive here, however, because it didn't heed the warning. They do die. And that's a problem, except in the land of Goshen, which is again, where the people of Israel are, where God is protecting them. Pharaoh calls for Moses and Aaron and says, Hey, I messed up. Yahweh is right. We're in the wrong. Please have them stop this. And Moses responds. Now that the text gives us a clue about what's next. verse 31 says the flax and the barley were struck down for the barley was in the ear and the flax was in the butt. So you have two crops that were destroyed, but there are two crops that were protected. So you have the wheat and the emmer that were not struck down for they are late in coming up. And so you realize here, the Pharaoh still has an out, he is not completely destroyed yet. And of course you know that this is not the ultimate destruction. Nevertheless, despite these things, he hardens his heart. In fact, that's what you see here in verse 34. When Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunder had ceased, he sinned yet again and hardened his heart. Now notice that language there, he sinned, hardening his heart. Now this is not God forcing him, I feel like I need to keep bringing this up because even though the text is telling us God's on the throne here, Pharaoh is a choosing agent. He has some kind of, let's call it freedom, even though freedom as we understand it today is probably not the best term. He has agency to make a decision that sins against the Lord. He's doing this of his own accord. All the while you have two wills at work here. You have the Lord's will and you have the human will. Both of those are working in conjunction. God's will will ultimately prevail. Okay, that's chapters seven, eight, and nine. We've covered a lot of territory. A lot of the plagues are happening now. Remember the plagues are here to showcase God's strength over and against the rulers that is the gods of the Egyptians and Yahweh is showing himself strong and powerful and mighty. The weakness of the human leaders, in this case Moses and Aaron, are no problem for God. He's utilizing them To showcase his strength. He raises up leaders, both the good and the bad to demonstrate his glory and his honor. And that's again, another reminder for you. And for me, we don't need to rest in our judges. We don't need to even rest in our pastors. We're ultimately resting in the leadership of the Lord. We want to trust our leaders. Of course we want to trust our pastors, but it's the Lord who leads us. And that is something worth being comforted about. Let's pray. Lord, we do thank you that you are our leader and that no matter what's happening around us above us No matter what kind of things take place in our future You are the one that we can trust because you're the one leading us Thank you so much for taking care of this body of believers this local church And of course lord preserving your church in mass in total in total We ask that you continue to do that Please protect the church that's in america help us to continue to do good work while we have the opportunity In this brief season of respite, however long it is Let us be on mission doing your work for your glory and your honor. We ask all these things in Jesus name. Amen. And thank you so much for joining me again. I appreciate that. Really, I do. And hopefully we'll look forward to seeing you all tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. This time with Pastor PJ Intoe.

Hey, thanks for joining us for another episode of the daily Bible podcast. We hope and pray this has been a blessing to you and your time in the word. If it has, if you would subscribe to this podcast, leave a leave a comment and share it with some friends and family. That would be awesome. If you need more information about Compass Bible Church here in North Texas, you can go to compassntx. org. Again, that's compassntx. org. And we'll be back with you tomorrow for another episode of the daily Bible podcast.