Exodus 10-11
“That you may tell your children and grandchildren”
Dear Friends of Jesus Christ,
When I was a kid I was blessed enough to have both grandparents and greatgrandparents. On my father’s side I had great-grandparents – Grandpa and Grandma
Dykstra. When I was about 12 years old and living in Canada, my parents announced
one day that Grandpa Dykstra had died in Michigan. I knew him a little bit, but it was
more sad for my parents than it was for me. Grandma Dykstra would go on to live
another 10 years or so until she was about 95. I have many memories of visiting her at
her retirement complex. She was full of life and full of love for God even into her 90s.
Then I got a phone call one day saying that she had died too. But, before she died, my
cousin Becky gave birth to a child, making Grandma Dykstra a great-great-grandmother.
I think it’s remarkable that five generations would be living at the same time. I think of
this family tree as I read this passage in Exodus 10-11 and you’ll see why later on.
God says to Moses, “Go again to Pharaoh.” This is at least the tenth time. God is
clearly messing with Pharaoh because he’s again hardening Pharaoh’s heart. Moses and
Aaron go to Pharaoh and say to him: “Hey Pharaoh, we’ve got another message from the
Lord our God, the God of the Israelites and this is the message: ‘Let my people go!!!
How long are you going to remain stubborn? Let them go so they may worship and serve
me – not you. Let them go and if you refuse then I’ll send in the locusts. If you think
your plants and trees and crops are devastated now, just wait til I send in the locusts. If
you think your economy is devastated now, just wait til I send in the locusts. If you think
the gnats and the flies and the boils made you uncomfortable, just wait until the locusts
fill your houses! It will be something that Egypt has never ever seen in all of its history!”
Pharaoh’s officials have had enough. Already Pharaoh’s magic men are
dumbfounded. Remember they could not produce the gnats. Now Pharaoh’s officials
have had enough. “How long, Pharaoh, O King, will you allow this Moses to be a snare
to us? Let the Hebrews go. Don’t you see that Egypt is in ruins? Open your eyes.
We’ve all had enough of this Moses and his God.” Indeed, Egypt is devastated and
Pharaoh has a rare moment of sober sense. He says, “Okay, go worship the Lord your
God.”
……… “But….just who will be going???”
“We’re taking everybody. We’re taking our wives, our sons, our daughters, all
our animals. Everybody is going along to worship our God. It going to be a great
festival and everybody needs to be there.”
“NO! Only the men can go! You are clearly up to something wanting to take the
women and children along.” Of course Moses is up to something. He wants to get the
heck out of Egypt and everybody is going along. Pharaoh, it seems, is appealing to the
common ancient religious practice of men-only participating in worship. “Why do you
need to take the women and children if your only plan is to worship? What are you up to
Moses?”
Pharaoh will not let all the people go and so Moses stretches out his staff over
Egypt and the Lord sends a giant eastern wind with millions or even billions of locusts in
the wind. The text says about these locusts that “They invaded all Egypt and settled
down in every area of the country in great numbers. Never before had there been such a
plague of locusts, nor will there ever be again! They covered all the ground until it was
black.” And they’re hungry. They devour everything. Nothing green remains in the
land of Egypt.
You know the plague was bad because we read in verse 16 that Pharaoh quickly
summons Moses and Aaron. Quickly. And this great, proud man is so quickly humbled
again into confession: “I have sinned against the Lord your God and agains you. Forgive
my sin and please pray to this God of yours to take these locusts out of here. Help me
Moses!”
Moses prays. The Lord sends another wind and the locusts are carried off into the
Red Sea to die. No locust was left anywhere in Egypt!” And we see that the locusts
drowning in the Red Sea foreshadow some others drowning in the Red Sea in just a few
chapters.
“But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he would not let the Israelites go.”
I’m left wondering if Pharaoh’s confession was genuine. I’m left wondering if Pharaoh
really did intend to repent and let the Israelites go, but then God hardened his heart, or if
Pharaoh never really intended to let them go and God hardened an already hard heart? I
think the latter. I think God hardens already hard hearts like I said last week. I think God
says to Pharaoh and Herod and Caesar and Frank Sinatra – “Okay, have it your way!”
Pharaoh’s way is to keep the Israelites in slavery serving him.
Onto plague number 9. This time there is no warning for Pharaoh. The Lord tells
Moses: “Just do it. Do it right now. Stretch out your hand toward the sky so that there is
darkness everywhere in Egypt.” Moses does it. He stretches out his hand and there is
darkness – total darkness – in the land of Egypt. No one can see anything. No one can
leave his house. It’s pitch black for the Egyptians (not for the Israelites; they’ve got
light). Have you ever been in a dungeon where you can’t even see your hand in front of
your face? It’s a dungeon everywhere for all the Egyptians and that’s okay for a night
but when the sun does not come up the next morning and the sun is one of your
gods…….and then the sun doesn’t come up the next morning either…….and you wonder
how you’ll ever eat again and you wonder if you’ll ever see the faces of your beautiful
wife and children again…….what kind of life is life on this earth in pitch black all the
time?.........Your sun god appears to be dead and you are going to be dead
next……..Moses where are you? Let’s talk.
And there’s no confession of sin this time. Pharaoh doesn’t even bother. He’s in
problem solving mode and the problem is constant darkness and the solution is to let the
people go so he says, “Get out of here. Take your people out of here. Even the women
and children…….”
“But………..not the animals.’
“Oh, we’re taking the animals Pharaoh. We need the animals for the offerings.”
“Get out of my face Moses! The day I see you again you will be a dead man. I
don’t ever want to see your face again.”
“That’s fine with me Pharaoh…….but before I leave I have one more thing to say.
There is one more plague to go…….the worst one…..number 10. All of your firstborn
children and cattle will die. And you and your fellow Egyptians will wail like you’ve
never wailed before. And your officials will beg us to leave Egypt. And we will.”
Moses, the text says, is hot with anger. I kind of like it. He’s fired up. This
timid shepherd who says - “No me. Send someone else to go to Pharaoh. I can’t even
speak. No one will believe anything I say. Not me.” – he is now firmly engaged in
God’s drama. He’s fired up!
The point again is God’s sovereignty over creation and over Pharaoh and God
fighting for his people and God showing off his power. And there’s this other point
which we see in Exodus 10:2: “That you may tell your children and grandchildren how I
dealt harshly with the Egyptians and how I performed my signs among them, and that
you many know that I am the Lord.” God is messing with Pharaoh and he has an eye on
more than the present generation in Egypt. God has an eye on the future generations of
his people. What God is doing in Egypt is going to ring a bell that is heard throughout
the nations and what God is doing in Egypt is going to ring a bell that is heard throughout
the generations of his people. Children, years down the road, will hear the story of how
Mighty Yahweh took it to Pharaoh and rescued us from his evil hand.
“That you may tell your children and grandchildren…” God’s great acts are
revealed from one generation to the next. Among the ancient Israelites, parents would sit
around the dinner table and tell their children about what God did in the lives of Abraham
and Isaac and Jacob, and Sarah and Rebekah, and Leah and Rachel, about what God did
through Joseph and Moses (in this passage) and in the Red Sea. Parents would tell their
children about Joshua and Ruth and David fighting Goliath and the courage of Esther.
Grandparents would tell their grandchildren. The story of God’s work in his people got
carried down from one generation to the next. Now we tell our children and
grandchildren about all these stories and we tell them about Jesus Christ. We tell our
children and grandchildren about Christmas and the incarnation, about healings,
exorcisms, parables and the kingdom of God, about a cross and a resurrection and
forgivenss of sins, about the return of the King and heaven. God makes himself known
from one generation to the next. I think of Grandma Dykstra passing Christian faith
down to my grandmother who passed it down to my uncle who passed it down to my
cousin who passed it down to my cousin’s daughter. Five generations. “That you may
tell your children and grandchildren….”
The challenge for us is to not only tell our children and grandchildren of God’s
great works in history and God’s great works in our lives, but also to live in such a way
that what we tell them has credibility. They need to not only hear of God’s power
through our words. They need to see God’s power in our transformed lives. My dad was
a preacher who preached a lot of sermons. But, his daily living had more influence on
me. His daily living gave the sermons credibility. The challenge is for us imperfect
parents and grandparents (and singles who know younger people) to pass down the faith
from one generation to the next –with our words and our life witness.
Friends of Jesus Christ, God has already has used you in the lives of younger
generations and I assume he wants to use you even more. So may you know and treasure
the good news of Jesus Christ. May you rest in his grace and be filled with his joy and
may you live for his glory. May you tell younger generations about God’s works with
your words and with your life. And may your children and grandchildren and other
young people know that Satan and sin and death have been conquered by Jesus Christ for
the glory of God. Amen.