Ep. 25 | PLAGUE 2: One More Night with the Frogs

Text: Exodus 8:1-15

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord, “Let my people go, that they may serve me. 2 But if you refuse to let them go, behold, I will plague all your country with frogs. 3 The Nile shall swarm with frogs that shall come up into your house and into your bedroom and on your bed and into the houses of your servants and your people,[b] and into your ovens and your kneading bowls. 4 The frogs shall come up on you and on your people and on all your servants.”’” 5 [c] And the Lordsaid to Moses, “Say to Aaron, ‘Stretch out your hand with your staff over the rivers, over the canals and over the pools, and make frogs come up on the land of Egypt!’” 6 So Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt, and the frogs came up and covered the land of Egypt. 7 But the magicians did the same by their secret arts and made frogs come up on the land of Egypt.

8 Then Pharaoh called Moses and Aaron and said, “Plead with the Lord to take away the frogs from me and from my people, and I will let the people go to sacrifice to the Lord.” 9 Moses said to Pharaoh, “Be pleased to command me when I am to plead for you and for your servants and for your people, that the frogs be cut off from you and your houses and be left only in the Nile.” 10 And he said, “Tomorrow.” Moses said, “Be it as you say, so that you may know that there is no one like the Lord our God. 11 The frogs shall go away from you and your houses and your servants and your people. They shall be left only in the Nile.” 12 So Moses and Aaron went out from Pharaoh, and Moses cried to the Lord about the frogs, as he had agreed with Pharaoh.[d] 13 And the Lord did according to the word of Moses. The frogs died out in the houses, the courtyards, and the fields.14 And they gathered them together in heaps, and the land stank. 15 But when Pharaoh saw that there was a respite, he hardened his heart and would not listen to them, as the Lord had said.

(1) REQUEST from God—verse 8

James Boice wrote: “They were forced to loathe the symbols of their depraved worship. But they could not kill them. And when the frogs died, their decaying bodies must have turned the towns and countryside into a stinking horror.”

Reasons why this wasn’t a NATURAL occurrence:

- SCALE: Why are the Egyptians amazed and in fear?
- SCHOLARS: They can’t agree on the reason/explanation
- SPECIFICS: God will stop the plague on a specific day.
- SUDDEN STOP: thousands/millions of frogs don’t die all simultaneously.
- SCRIPTURES: In the words of the psalmist, “He [God] sent . . . frogs that devastated them” (78:45).

This Plague….

o REVEALED God’s INFALLIBILITY

o EXPOSED Pharoah’s INABILITY

o DECLARED the Egyptian god’s INEFFICACY

Fascinating how we draw comfort from our God’s OMNIPRESENCE but despise such an attribute in false gods!

Charles Spurgeon pointed out how appropriate it was for God to plague the Egyptians in this way: “There was a 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 a certain frog-headed goddess were placed in the catacombs, and frogs themselves were preserved with sacred honors. 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 bed-chambers 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?”

Song by Shirley Cohen Steinberg:

“Commonly sung by Jewish children at the Passover Seder: One morning when Pharaoh woke in his bed There were frogs on his head and frogs in his bed Frogs on his nose and frogs on his toes Frogs—here! Frogs—there! Frogs were jumping everywhere!”

(2) REQUIREMENT for God—verse 10

Why tomorrow and not today?

(a) Sin of PRIDE: He had to be in control.

(b) Sin of PROCRASTINATION:

Etymology: from Latin procrastinatus, past participle of procrastinare “to put off till tomorrow; defer, delay.”

Nate’s DEFINITION of procrastination: Putting off for later what you could (or should) do right now. The assumption that God has nothing better for you in the future than what you should do right now. The assumption to have the future to do what you should do now. 

James 4:14 says, “Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.”

In short: Procrastination is a form of REBELLION and self-sufficiency.

(3) REJECTION of God—verse 15

E. Stanley Jones: “If you don’t make up your mind, then your unmade mind will unmake you. Here is the place where there must be no dallying. For any dallying will be the Trojan horse that will get on the inside and open the gates to the enemy. God can do anything for the man who has made up his mind. He can do little or nothing for the double-minded.”

JAMES 1:6-8 “But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. 7  For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8  he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.”

(4) RESPONSES to God

(a) The RESPONSE of the LAND

(b) RESPONSE OF THE MAGICIANS

(c) THE RESPONSE OF PHARAOH