Well, we're returning to Exodus this morning to pick up where
we left off with the plagues that were to come to Egypt.
And I remember the excitement in primary school each spring as
the annual hunt for frog spawn would begin.
We would be told to look out in our gardens or the gardens of
our neighbors for the mass of translucent balls that frogs had
laid on the surface of the ponds.
Now, our garden did have a fish pond, and so I would diligently
go looking for whatever frog spawn I could find.
And the purpose, of course, for looking it was to bring it back
into school, where it would be placed in a bowl or a tank of water,
and we would watch the frog spawn hatch into tadpoles and then
grow into frogs.
Now, before primary school, my only connection with frogs was from
my county down cousin.
She would get a frog, she'd get a straw, she'd then insert that
straw into the frog, and I'd leave the rest to your imagination.
To me, that's what happened.
Frogs.
If you haven't got it yet, maybe that's one way of getting rid
of frogs.
Maybe that's the way my father liked, because every time I went
looking for frog spawn, I could never find it, because my father
would be down as soon as he saw the frog spawn and get it out
of our fish pond, because he knew exactly what frogs would do
to his newly planted garden and those things that he'd planted
in the spring.
But I can remember one year I did find some and I was able to bring
it in.
Unfortunately, it was the year that trouble started in the primary
school, because I can remember that year things moved a lot quicker
than our teacher anticipated.
And after one long spring bank holiday weekend, there were a number
of frogs in our classroom.
Whenever we returned, one or two had made it out of the bowl and
were quite literally hopping on our desks.
But thankfully, the majority stayed in the bowl that was there.
Now, I don't think the teacher was trying to give us any biblical
instruction through this annual event of nature, but it's
always stuck with me, along with what my cousin would have done
with frogs when she came on her holidays.
But there are problematic creatures, we know that.
Well, hopefully we know that they're not just these cute little
green things.
They do cause problems.
And the more frogs you have hopping around a room, the more problems
they will cause.
And this is precisely the situation that we find in Exodus
chapter 8.
Only this is no experiment of nature.
This was divine punishment upon Pharaoh and the Egyptians for
their refusal to let God's people Go.
At the end of chapter seven, we're told that a week passes from
whenever the blood was in the Nile and the canals and all the springs
to when Moses was told to go to Pharaoh again.
And this is what the Lord says, Go to Pharaoh and say to him,
this is what the Lord says.
Let my people go so that they may worship me.
This is a familiar phrase and will become more familiar.
Let my people go, says the Lord.
And verse two, the Lord goes on to tell of the consequences that
will come on Pharaoh if he refuses.
With the expectation, indeed the knowledge that he will refuse.
And it will be a plague of frogs across the whole country.
And so, after the situation with the blood making the water unusable,
you would have thought that Pharaoh would have been more attentive,
he would have been more open to the request to let the children
of Israel go.
But God knows the heart of Pharaoh.
He knows the heart of the world's superpower.
And the punishment for refusing to follow the command of
the Lord will not be simply a few frogs here and there, but they
will be everywhere, leaving life of the Egyptians difficult because
everywhere they step they will have frogs in their way.
Look at how the event is described in verse three.
The Nile will teem with frogs.
They will come up into your palace and your bedroom and onto
your bed, into the houses of your officials and on your people
and into your ovens and kneading troughs.
Do you see where they're going to be?
They're going to be everywhere.
It's not just going to be the purse of Egyptian society or the
civil servants, those officials.
It's actually going to be in Pharaoh's bedchambers as well.
Not even going to be able to get away from the frogs.
They'll be everywhere.
Houses, kitchens, beds.
There'll be no part of normal life left untouched by the arrival
of these things.
And verse five tells us that they will arrive by Aaron again,
once again stretching out a staff over the water sources of Egypt.
And then they will come up out of them.
Verse 6 tells us that this is what indeed Aaron does.
So we must assume that Pharaoh has refused the request.
And so the plague comes upon the land.
Life with these frogs has now become very difficult for Pharaoh's
people.
It hasn't gone unnoticed because the Lord has done exactly
what he said he would.
But there's a deeper meaning to these frogs coming as the second
plague.
The first plague was that plague of blood where the source,
the main source of water for the daily lives of the people was
contaminated.
They Couldn't use it.
They couldn't use it for washing, they couldn't use it for
cooking, they couldn't use it for drinking, they couldn't use it
to water their crops.
But we have to remember that the Egyptians worshiped the Nile
because of these very life giving properties.
But it was into these waters, remember, that Pharaoh wanted to
throw the Israelite babies, to kill them, to control the birth rate.
God's people.
And now from these same water sources come frogs.
First blood and now frogs.
And so this is very significant for the Egyptians because
God has a very serious theological purpose for sending what
seems to be such a silly plague.
I mean, can you imagine it, these frogs just hopping and croaking
throughout the land.
You can nearly laugh at it.
But there's something more deeper going on because once again,
God was demonstrating his power over the gods of Egypt.
This is what Charles Spurgeon says.
There was a subtleness or suitableness in God's choosing the
frogs to humble Egypt's kings.
Because frogs were worshipped by that nation as emblems of the
deity.
Images of certain frog headed goddesses were placed in the catacombs
and frogs themselves were preserved with sacred honours.
These be thy gods, O Egypt, thou shalt have enough of them.
Pharaoh himself shall pay a new reverence to these reptiles.
As the true God is everywhere present around us, in our bedchambers
and in our streets, so shall Pharaoh find every place filled with
what he chooses to call divine.
Is it not a just way of dealing with him?
Asks Spurgeon.
You see, in the great pantheon of Egyptian gods, the frog goddess
Heket was the spouse of the creator God Kunum.
And the Egyptians believed that Kunum fashioned human bodies
on a potter's wheel.
And then Heket, that frog goddess, breathed into them the breath
of life.
She was the agent of life giving power, and she was also the
symbol of fertility.
Is it starting to make a little bit more sense as to why the
second plague is another God to which the Egyptians worship?
You see, the Egyptians relied on Heket for two things in particular.
One was for the control of the frog population.
And so Heket's job was to protect the crocodiles in the Nile
so that they would eat the frogs that needed to be eaten and
thereby keep their population low.
And so when Egypt was overrun with frogs, well then the goddess
Heket was humiliated because what could she do?
The plague proved that she was powerless to resist the mighty strength
of the Lord.
So God is challenging the divine nature that the Egyptians
are plac in this false God.
But Hekat's other responsibility was to assist women
in childbirth.
And since she was the spirit who breathed life into the body,
that's what they believed.
Women turned to her for help when they were in the pains of labor.
And this suggests that there may be a connection between the second
plague and Pharaoh's sin against the Hebrew midwives.
The American commentator Phil Ryken says this.
The very river that Pharaoh used as an instrument of genocide
was turned to blood.
And the first goddess to be Humil was the one who governed labor
and delivery.
There was a connection between Pharaoh's crime, that crime of wanting
to get rid of the children of Israel, and God's punishment.
And all this would have been very apparent to the Egyptians and
to Pharaoh in particular.
This will not have gone unnoticed and the depth of meaning
that is being displayed here.
But as we've seen before, Pharaoh has his magicians, and they're
able to conjure up more frogs.
And of course, this is meant to show their power that Pharaoh
can do as much as the God of the Israelites.
But what do these magicians really do?
They simply add more frogs to the problem.
So rather than getting rid of them, they're adding to Pharaoh's
problem.
They can't get rid of them.
And that's why we see Pharaoh's response in verse eight.
It may surprise us.
Pharaoh's basically asking for a prayer meeting.
He summons Moses and Aaron and says, pray to the Lord to take the
frogs away from me and my people, and I will let your people
go to offer sacrifices to the Lord.
Well, this is enough for Pharaoh.
He's had enough of the frogs.
He can't get rid of them himself.
And so he turns to the only source of where they come from, the
Lord God Almighty.
And you know, this is a remarkable request, Remarkable because
it shows how much Pharaoh has learned about the ways of God.
Remember how he began the first time he encountered Moses?
He asked the question in Exodus 3, verse 2, who is the Lord?
I do not know the Lord.
Well, Pharaoh knows him.
Now Pharaoh turns to him to get rid of these frogs.
And just as God had promised the plague, so Moses knew that God
would be faithful in getting rid of it.
And so Pharaoh's speech to Moses and Aaron begins with the name
that Pharaoh didn't know just a matter of weeks before.
And it is the special name of the Lord.
You see, Pharaoh has learned something of God's power.
The very reason he summons Moses and Aaron was because he knew
that this plague was a divine miracle.
Maybe not Interpreting it as divine punishment, but certainly
as a miracle.
He knew that God had sent the frogs and that only God could take
them away by asking for their removal.
It was Pharaoh who was admitting that the Lord God of Israel
had power over all creation.
And now Pharaoh seems to have understood that the way to gain access
to that power was through prayer.
And so he asks Moses and Aaron to pray for him.
And Moses doesn't refuse this request from Pharaoh.
And we could easily think that this is now going to be the way that
we'd hoped for.
That at last, Pharaoh, he doesn't know there's going to be
10 plagues, but he's realizing who God is, and he let the people
go.
But did you notice what Moses asks in verse nine?
Moses asks Pharaoh when he wants him to pray so that the plague
of frogs will end.
This is what he gets in verse 10.
Tomorrow, Pharaoh said.
Moses replied, it will be as you say, so that you may know there
is no one like the Lord our God.
What was Pharaoh thinking?
If there was three frogs in the house, I would want them away
immediately.
And he's happy to wait until tomorrow morning.
What is he thinking?
Does he think he's still in control?
Well, actually, he does.
Most Egyptians would have asked for the plague to stop right
away, but Pharaoh wants one more chance.
Pharaoh's basically saying, just give me one more night with
these frogs.
Moses.
Perhaps he still hoped that they would hop away on their own
so he could avoid needing God's help and he could declare that
he had defeated the God of Israel.
Or perhaps, and this seems more likely, he thought that even
God would need at least 24 hours to get rid of so many frogs.
Remember, Pharaoh's working in the context where he's divine, but
he's only human, where he sees his magicians as being able to conjure
things.
But perhaps they have said they needed time.
So he's only working within the framework of what he understands.
But yet God will demonstrate a greater understanding to all of this.
Well, whatever Pharaoh was thinking, it's not hard to guess
what Moses had in mind.
By letting Pharaoh decide when the frogs would go, he was showing
his absolute confidence in the power of God.
That's what's on demonstration here.
Moses was not being polite.
By giving some kind of reverence to Pharaoh to make the
decision, this was a public statement of faith.
See, whenever someone performs a miracle, they're always skeptics.
So Moses gave Pharaoh the advantage of setting the time, which
would prove that his power came from God.
And the next day, at Pharaoh's request.
Moses made intercession for Egypt.
And the result, we're told in verses 12 to 14, is that the plague
ends with the death of the frogs.
They now decompose under the heat of the African sun, leaving
a stench that was known throughout the land.
But this doesn't change Pharaoh's heart.
It looked like it was.
It looked as if there was a glimmer of hope that the people would
be set free, but with some breathing space, as verse 15 tells
us, Pharaoh basically returns to business as usual.
But when Pharaoh saw that there was.
This is the key word, relief, he hardened his heart and would not
listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the Lord had said.
This is a sad story for Pharaoh.
When we recount this story, we see that he had all the information
he needed to know who God is.
And he had all the information he needed on how to respond to God.
But instead he chooses to barter with God.
If God does this, then I'll believe in him.
See, Pharaoh wants to relegate God to a transaction that benefits
him.
The only thing that really mattered to Pharaoh was his own personal
comfort.
When he saw that there was a respite from the frogs, that they'd
gone, he once again hardened his heart against God.
And this is a common trait of humanity.
We too are quick to barter with God.
If God would only do this, then I will believe in him.
If God does what I want him to do because I think it will make me
happy, then I'll trust Him.
If God will only change the situation, then I will attend church
regularly.
Like Pharaoh, we set conditions of how and when we will
respond to God.
But this is not how God works.
We've seen this trivial approach in the life of Pharaoh.
But God is the one who made us.
God is the one who keeps us.
And as Paul tells us in Acts 17, verse 28, for in him we live
and move and have our being.
God is the only giver and sustainer of life.
Without him, we have nothing.
We simply know his common grace and all humanity.
But that common grace only goes to a certain point.
It's not saving grace that the Lord lavishingly pours out.
You see, God is the one who not only gives us what we need to
live and move and have our being, but he does give us that way
of salvation, a way that no one else can give.
This is not a transaction on our part, because God has already
demonstrated both his love and his power and sending his one and
only Son.
This is a transaction where our sin is placed on Jesus Christ,
the only Savior.
And that's at no cost to us so that we can know that forgiveness
is ours, that we will have forgiveness of our sins and so escape
the punishment that we deserve because of our sin.
This is truly a free gift.
Yet we go around as if we're the ones in charge and we will have
God do things our way rather than his.
Isn't this how Pharaoh wanted it?
And look what happened.
His heart was hardened.
And as the account in Exodus unfolds, he will be lost in his sin
forever because he thought he was the one who could barter with
God.
See, I want you to love Jesus for who he is and not for whatever
perceived transaction transaction you can get out of Him.
I am a living testimony of what you gain.
You gain far more than you can ever imagine when you come to Christ
and know him fully.
That's what my salvation means, that I have the fullness of
life.
But yet how easily, how so easily I can move into that transactional
nature of the world and think, if I do this, well, then God will
definitely do that.
But that's transaction on my part.
That's not his.
So what will it be for you on this first Sunday of 2026?
Will you continue to barter with God that if he will give you
what you want, then you'll respond to him?
Or will you reverse this notion?
And will you consider God for who he truly is, the one who has
given his all for for you, because his invitation is still for
you today, as his own words tell us in John 5:24.
I tell you the truth.
Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal
life and will not be condemned.
He has crossed over from death to life.
That's what all of this is about.
Read the story of this Pharaoh.
And he will not move from death to life.
He will remain in death because of the hardness of his heart,
because he thinks he can barter, he can transact with God.
We cannot.
The transaction is already God's where our sin he is willing
to place on his Son so that we can go free.
What will it be on this first Sunday of 2026?
Are you still going to try and do it your way?
Where maybe you turn up on a Sunday and then the rest of the week
is what it is, and then come back as if nothing's happened, yet
so much does.
Where we deny Christ, where we don't live for him, where we continue
to reject him and our hearts are hardened just like the Pharaohs.
The invitation is whoever hears the words of Christ and believes
him who sent has eternal life.
And there will be no condemnation beginning in 2026.
What will it truly be?
I can tell you what I want for you.
I want you to love Jesus.
That's what I want.
I want each and every one of you to love Jesus more.
I want you to know him as your Savior, but I want you to live for
him confidently by way and not slipping into the ways of the world.
Because those ways will not save, those ways will not redeem,
and those ways will not keep you to the end.
Put aside any notion that you can control God.
Put aside any notion that he's your good luck charm, because he's
not.
He is far greater.
And whether you realize it or not, in him you live, you move, and
you have your being.
It is only by him that you have the breath that you're breathing
right now.
Now.
So why are you rejecting Him?
Why are you thinking you can claim his name and then do whatever
you want?
You can't.
For no one can take God for the full.
Trust him and love him and know that assurance that you have
crossed over from death to life.
What's the whole purpose of the Exodus?
Well, it is about salvation.
That indeed we will be sealed for the glory of God.
Truly for our good.
Come to a Savior who invites us.
Come to a Savior who will soften your hard heart.
Come to a Savior who will give you joy and life.
And that's now and forevermore.
Let's pray.
Our Father God, we thank you for your word that encourages us
to look onto Jesus, that indeed our hard hearts will be transformed.
That hearts, just like Pharaoh's.
But we have one who went to the cross for us so that our sins
receive the punishment they deserve.
But not on us, on Him.
So may we never take it for granted.
May we never abuse your name.
May we never try to make a fool of you, because we can't.
May we look only to Jesus in all honesty and in all truth and
live for him as he commands and calls us to this day.
And it's in Christ's name we pray.
Amen.