And we're here in exos chapter 8 and we're only going to be looking at five verses because we're looking at the third play here tonight
But there's a lot of information about the third play here about the lice
And we're starting in verse number 15 and notice what it says here
But when pharaoh saw that there was respite and right there that's that's pretty powerful with the bible saying if you remember
The frogs had were the second play
I got a frog in my mouth
That's not a good way to start off a sermon
But um the
The frogs had filled the land and then once they got rid of them pharaoh said, you know, hey do it tomorrow
And then there's a respite meaning there's a break from the pain. There's a break from the frogs or basically it's horrible
But then it gets less and see this is the way a lot of people work
you know they have problems in their life and they're trying to cling on to god and cry out to god and
Once it gets a little bit better
Then all of a sudden they just kind of forget about it and go back to their old ways and that's exactly what pharaoh's doing
There's a little bit of a break
There's a little bit of a respite and what happens and he hearkened not onto them
He hardened his heart and hearkened not onto them as the lord had said
the lord said unto moses
Sand Aaron stretch out thy rod and smite the dust of the land that it may become lice throughout all the land of egypt
So I want you to notice here when it comes to lices smite the dust of the land, okay
Go back to verse number two for a second
Go back to verse number two
And it says here in verse number two and if thou refused to let them go behold I will smite all thy borders with
frogs and the river
Shall bring forth frogs abundantly
Which shall go up and come into thine house and into thy bed chamber and upon thy bed and into the house of thy
Servants upon thy people and into thine ovens and into thine eating troughs
So when you're looking at the plagues that we've seen so far
The first plague was an attack on the Nile river, right?
And so the Nile river was essentially like a god to ancient Egypt
It's what made them powerful and they would worship it. I believe that we're seeing pharaoh going out to the water to worship
That would be like his normal routine. They'd have some sort of religious service
But we see with the second plague very clearly the frogs are coming out of the water
With the third plague the lice are coming from the dust of the land and when you look at the fourth plague the flies
The bible says they're coming from the air and what you're seeing is that god is attacking every bin
Of Egypt, there's nothing being left. So the first attack is very strong hit the Nile river
That's a huge part of the culture of ancient Egypt then all of a sudden you're hitting
Uh the river where the frogs are coming out you're hitting the dust of the land you're hitting the air
Then it's going to go on to attacking the livestock attacking your animals
And you go on throughout all the plagues attacks human beings like they get the boils on their their bodies
You get you get uh, the locus which will attack all the crops
You get the darkness and basically every aspect of their lives is being attacked
So I do believe when you look at these uh, ten plagues
They're kind of attacks on various gods of ancient Egypt
But really the thing is with the culture of ancient Egypt that was very religious
Their religion was intertwined with their culture. So their religion intertwined every area of their lives
So if you attack every year of their lives
You're going to be basically hitting all the gods in the process as well
And so basically however
You want to look at that whether it's an attack on the gods or in every area of their life
When you stop and look at the 10 plagues
There's nothing that's being left undone
I forgot to name it two of those plagues when I named through the 10
But every aspect if you look at these 10 plagues every area, I mean it hits the water it hits the ground
It hits the air
There's a reason why it says it's coming from the dust of the land because god is trying to prove a point all
Aspects of your life are going to be torn apart
Now when you're looking at a sin
Though the one specific god you would look at that's being attacked the name of that god is geb geb
I'm assuming it's pronounced geb. Maybe it's maybe it's geb. I don't know
geb or geb
But here's what it says about this god of ancient egypt the ancient egyptian god of the earth and growing crops and plants
whose laugh caused earthquakes
plus the father of snakes, so apparently
Apparently the laugh of this god would just cause an earthquake so that's how earthquakes come, you know, basically
Geb laughs and then the earth splits apart and he's the father of snakes. It sounds like a great god to worship
Geb is the son of shu and tefnut husband of nut the egyptian goddess of the sky
geb is one of the oldest gods in ancient egyptian history and acts as part of the
Heliopolitan
Eniade he is known to have given birth to osiris isis set nephthys
and nehabga
with his consorts
Nut tefnut and minuetet
And you know, I don't know it says here. I just noticed he is known to have given birth
So I don't know if that means he's he's the father
Or if if that's accurate what it's saying is like he actually gave birth to isis and osiris
Which it's a pretty messed up culture, right?
He is associated with healing earth vegetation plus underworld and royalty is connected with the mythological divine creator goose
That laid a world egg where the world is located on so apparently the world is located on
An egg and I don't really this is really outside the sermon
But you know as I I joked about how some people say that the earth is on the back of a big turtle
Here it's on on the back of an egg. Why do they pick surfaces that are sloped?
It's gonna it's gonna roll off right? It's gonna roll off the turtle's back. It's gonna roll off the egg
Just pick like a pancake or something. Why are you picking a curved surface? It doesn't really make sense, right?
But that's what they say, right?
Well notice what it says here in verse number 17
And they did so for aaron stretched out his hand with his rod and smote the dust of the earth and it became lice
and man and a beast
And all the dust land became lice throughout all the land of egypt now as we look through the plague so far
The first plague is a pretty devastating plague because when your water supply is turned to blood
There's going to be panic and they're doing everything they can to get
Water out of the ground and because all the water they see is contaminated with blood
Which means they're not going to be able to drink it
I've said that with the second plague. I don't think frogs are as gross as maybe other people do but
I think lice are disgusting. Okay
So frogs to me don't really gross me out
But but we had a dog growing up, you know ticks and lice
And there's a bunch of kids that got lice in school and i'm trying to remember
I remember my parents worried that I had lice, but i'm not sure if I actually did or not
But it's a disgusting animal. I mean if you go to google images and look at a giant picture of lice
It is gross. It is nasty and so
To me this would be a pretty terrible plague when there's lice everywhere because I think that would mean that everybody's got like
Thousands of lice in their hair and all over their body
I mean
This is a pretty disgusting plague when you think about it and point number one of the sermon is the uncleanness of lice
The uncleanness the dirtiness of the animal lice now
Here's the thing god created lice god created ticks god created flies. I don't always understand why it created certain animals
They were created by god, but they are disgusting nonetheless and the bible tells us that they are an unclean animal but
By definition here's what a lice here are what lice are
Lice are obligate parasites living externally on warm-blooded hosts
Which include every species of bird and mammal except for monotremes?
pangons and bats lice are vectors of diseases such as typhus and
I was talking about this sermon earlier today and my kids thought I was joking
When I was telling them this animal will eat your blood they thought because you know, I tell a lot of jokes
Like he's joking. I was like ask mom
Right lice will go on you and lice and ticks I was explaining what those animals are
I said, I don't want to show you a picture because you're gonna have nightmares
It's a gross animal, but they will attach to your body and they eat your blood and you know
What's even worse than that is they often carry diseases and that's a big problem
Where it's not just that they're itchy they're disgusting and all of those things
But then they carry diseases with them and they can send that on to you as they attach to your body
Right, and of course if you have animals, I mean if you have dogs if you have cats
lice and ticks and animals such as this
They will often end up attaching to your pets and then you come in the home and then of course, you know
They can be running around everywhere, right?
Go in your bible to leviticus chapter 5
The leviticus 5 now i'm going to read you an article about lice in ancient egypt
And this is not based on what the bible says about lice
But here's what they say
Head lice have been causing itching heads since ancient egyptian times imagine living in a time with very little technology
We are lucky that we have the means to get rid of lice today
Many ancient egyptians had head lice till the day they died and that is actually how archaeologists have discovered ancient egyptian lice remedies
Through their mummified corpses now what i'll say is whenever we read anything
We ought to really stop and think does this actually make sense?
Because I don't think this statement makes sense at all
It's like they say well, they had very little technology in ancient egypt. Well explain to me how they built the pyramids
Because we don't know today
How they built the pyramids
And to sit here and say that they just people would just get lice at the age of five and having until they were
80 until they died they didn't know how to get rid of it
You know, it's not that complicated. You know what? You know what they do? It's like for guys. They just shave your head
Right. I mean they could come up with techniques. I don't think it's like man
I don't know how to get this bug out of my hair
I guess i'll just be scratching until i'm 80 years old and it's like
What they often try to do is tell you that people from ancient times are just stupid. You're just
Dumb now with any false religion. We as we're going through this science versus bible series
There's a lot of stupid beliefs that are out there because people are not believing the bible
But you cannot sit here and tell me that everyone's just really dumb. It's like people back then
They couldn't they didn't know what one plus two was
Right. They didn't know how to talk. They're just like cavemen, you know, just like, you know half monkey half man caveman
It's like oh, we just learned to make fire, right?
That's not reality at all. And so I don't believe for a second. They did not know how to get rid of lice
They actually have some remedies that are listed here, but they were not dumb in ancient egypt
But they had a stupid religion and when you do have a stupid religion
You will do a lot of stupid things as a result. But here are some of the techniques they said
Shaving the entire body so the lice had nowhere to live. Yeah, that's the you get rid of all the hair
That's the basic thing that we were taught
Um, I don't remember if we had it or not
But I remember my parents were worried because a lot of kids at school did so for me. It's not a big deal
Just you know cut the hair really low
Then of course my sister had long hair and so I don't remember what they did with her
They were didn't want to shave, you know her head or whatever to find out but um for guys it's very easy
Um, one of the techniques they use was digesting a portion of date meal and water
Served warm and then spat out and you know, it sounds kind of strange
But you know if they actually did that they probably did it because it was effective, you know, I don't know
Um, you know, obviously whenever there's a problem in a society as a result of a problem existing
People figure out the solution of the problem. That's just the way that it works
So if lice was an issue with ancient Egypt, which according to this article it was even outside of these plagues coming
They would have figured out how to get rid of them, right?
and so
Leviticus chapter 5
Let's see what the bible says about lice and it says here in leviticus 5 verse 1
And if a soul sin and hear the voice of swearing and it is a witness
Whether you're at the scene or known of it if you do not utter it then he shall bear his iniquity
Or if a soul touched any unclean thing
Whether it be a carcass of an unclean beast or a carcass of unclean cattle or notice this or the carcass of
unclean
creeping things
And if it be hidden from him
He also shall be unclean and guilty and whenever you're seeing the bible bring up creeping things
It's bringing up that they are unclean
It's bringing up that they are dirty and isn't that true with bugs?
I mean if you have a dirty location, you know what you're going to have you're going to have a lot of bugs
You want to get rid of the cockroaches one of the best methods is keep things clean don't keep food around
I mean clean things up and bugs are not going to be around as much when it's clean
That's the way that it works. And what you're seeing in the bible is that bugs are listed as unclean creeping things. They are
Unclean bugs are obviously gross. They're disgusting and lice are obviously very itchy. They're gross. They're disgusting
But they are unclean according to the word of god now go to leviticus chapter 11 leviticus 11
leviticus chapter 11
Now look i'm sure this sounds obvious to you but you know quite honestly around the world a lot of cultures will tell you that
bugs are
Not gross. They're another animal just like anything else and we got to treat them. Well
It's like a lot of the religions coming out of india. They're saying we shouldn't kill bugs and it's just like
I don't know about you, but I I don't hesitate when I see a bug on the wall
It's like bam, you know you kill it
It's like wash your hands and get rid of it
Right, or if you have a lot of bugs you put out bug poison or whatever you need to do
Get them out of your house, right?
I think it's insanity if you lived in a house where bugs are everywhere and you don't even
Do anything to get rid of them? It's like you've got to be kidding me, right?
but there are cultures that teach that because
let's just be honest if
Evolution is true and the big bang is true and we are just an evolved animal
Then that cockroach is your great great grandfather. That's just the way that it works
That's reality
And so it's just the logical conclusion
If you believe in this but you know
I don't believe that because I believe that man is made in the image of god
And I think we are better than animals. I think we have dominion over the animals
And so guess what if you've got a problem look when I was a kid
We had a bunch of ants in our house, you know, we did we we got rid of them
We killed them
Why because we have dominion get rid of them and that is what the bible teaches
Bible says here in leviticus 11 verse 41
And every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth
Shall be an abomination
So every creeping thing and if there's any question that creepeth upon the earth, we're referring to insects
Okay, we're referring to lice. We're referring to bugs
Shall be an abomination. It shall not be eaten. I mean, isn't this just obvious that you should not eat
cockroach and lice and ticks
No, there are certainly animals that do eat these things. Uh, you know, I I saw my wife also mentioned
She already knew that that monkeys are known to eat lice
And so when they catch them on their body, they just take them. They just eat them. It's like
So for people to try to say we're an evolved monkey, it's like you're an evolved animal
It's like you're a bald monkey. It's like no, it's like i'm not like them. It's like that's disgusting to me
But I was curious because around the world just about anything is eaten somewhere and yes
There are groups of people that eat lice
It's like you look at I was reading online just various native tribes
And that eat bugs and lice is something they talked about
That they would basically you know
If their kids would get lice they'd search for them the moms would get the lice off and then they would eat it
and it's just like
Does there really need to be a bible verse that tells you not to eat this?
I mean, that's just disgusting
By the way, you don't have to eat everything to figure out whether or not you want to do it
It's like it's gross. It's disgusting. I don't care what it tastes like. I don't want to find out it's disgusting
Right, and you know, I was just thinking of just you know
Because I was thinking of like the what is it nursery rhymer jack and poi. I was thinking cino on kuman
Right whoever eats
the lice
Is the monkey right because that's what monkeys do and then it's just like and then people are doing it
Here's the thing about this. I didn't need to know the bible verse when I was a kid to realize not to eat lice
I didn't need the bible verse to realize. Hey don't eat a cockroach when I was a kid. It's just you know it
It's just gross. It's disgusting and the bible is telling you it's disgusting, right?
And I just want you to think about this just hypothetically though
Because let's say for example
that
Eating lice was the tastiest thing that you would ever eat in your life
And you knew that
Would you eat lice?
I would not
Would you?
No, it's disgusting
You say what's your point? Here's my point. Think about this spiritually. Let us say a sin was the most rewarding
pleasurable sin in the world
But you know, it's gross
You know, it's unclean, you know, it's wrong. Are you going to do it?
Because here's the thing about I think all of us would feel this way even if eating a spoonful of lice
Would be the greatest tasting thing you've ever had in your life. Would you do it?
I wouldn't it's so unclean. It's so disgusting. It's so dirty. I don't care what the taste is
Because in these tribes, you know, they'll say, you know, you should try it. It tastes really good
Maybe it does I don't care
Because it's unclean it's disgusting and here's the thing that is the way that we ought to feel about sin
It doesn't matter how good it feels. It doesn't matter if you do heroin it gives you this great feeling. I don't care
Because I know how unclean and destructive and unhealthy for your body that it is. So why would you do it?
Right. I mean god created everything for a reason and I was kind of joking about, you know
These are these are creatures god made and it's like why sometimes you wonder, you know
Probably one reason is because we can see a creature that is gross and we can just be reminded how gross and disgusting sin is
You see a creature like a tick or lice and oh, you know what it should remind you of it's unclean
And the bible tells us hey be clean not unclean not just physically but spiritually
See when it when it comes to the unclean animals that were not to eat
Part of it is just health reasons
bugs are unhealthy
the modern science thing is like
Eating bugs is like the big superfood cockroach is not the only bug that they keep talking about
They're trying to make it into like a bug cereal and everything. It's got 10 times the amount of protein
It's like look common sense is going to tell you it's unhealthy. I don't care how much protein is in it
But the thing is this is the bible teaches us this but the thing is when we look at bugs
We naturally just like it's disgusting
But see the bible says it's unclean and the bible links the uncleanness of animals to the uncleanness spiritually
It should remind us
Not to fill our lives with sin
I mean you think of some of the sins that are very prominent in this world pornography is very prominent
It's unclean
It's disgusting
It's filthy. It's gross
It doesn't matter how it makes you feel for 20 seconds or whatever it's like it's gross it's disgusting
You should have nothing to do with it
You say well when I drink I feel good. It makes me feel great. Yeah, but it's unclean
It's disgusting. It's gross
because when I give that example of eating lice all of us, it's just like
It's nasty even to think about it doesn't matter how it tastes
That is the way that we ought to think about sin. It doesn't matter
How it feels it doesn't matter you listen to that rock song for those two minutes. You feel great, man
You know, it hits me on the inside. I love it. I'm pumped but it's like it's unclean. It's sinful. It's wrong
So why would you do it no matter how it feels no matter how pleasurable it is, right?
Bible says sin pleasures for a season
But sin is never worth it. It always makes you feel horrible. You feel guilty. You're in a bad mood as a result
It's like are though is that small amount of pleasure in your life worth feeling just depressed and disgusting and miserable afterwards
Right, and that is one of the examples I think when the bible is giving you unclean animals like bugs
That's probably one of the big reasons god created them because it just naturally is a repulsive feeling
When you go home and you see that cockroach, you know crawling around it's like oh, but see that's what sin is like
It's disgusting
It's gross and that's one of the things the bible is trying to tell us here
I I don't really think they need to have a verse that says it shall not be eaten, but you know bugs are eaten
All over the world and modern day science, which supposedly ahead the bible is telling you bugs are so healthy now because of the protein
It's just like well, you know science will always have a lot of stupid things that throw out there
That's why you need the bible
verse number 42
Whatsoever goeth upon the belly and whatsoever goeth upon all four or whatsoever hath more feet among all creepy things that creep upon the earth
Them shall ye not eat they are an abomination
You shall not make yourselves abominable with any creeping thing that creepeth
Neither shall you make yourselves unclean with them that you should be defiled thereby
Brian the lord your god you shall therefore sanctify yourselves and ye shall be holy for I am holy and so notice
He's talking about physically being unclean physically dirty animals, right?
But then he's linking it with the spiritual because when he's saying be holy
Yeah, he's using the physical example, but the thing is the old testament gives you
physical examples
to help explain the spiritual
And so when he's giving you this physical example of being holy. Yeah, you know, you shouldn't touch touch a dead body
You're unclean if you do that, you need to wash and get cleaned, right?
But he's using that example to say you need to be holy put away the sin get it out of your life
Neither shall you defile yourselves with any manner of creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth
Brian the lord that bringeth you up out of the land of egypt to be your god
Ye shall therefore be holy for I am holy
This is the law of the beast and of the fount of every living creature that move into the waters and of every creature that
creepeth upon the earth
To make a difference between the unclean and the clean and between the beast that may be eaten
And the beast that may not be eaten and so in the old testament
There's a lot of examples of unclean animals and clean animals
Now, of course in the new testament that does not apply
But what the bible speaks about in the new testament a lot is the difference between things that are clean spiritually
Or morally correct versus things that are unclean
And he uses this he he quotes from this to talk about putting a difference between the clean and the unclean
Now here's a physical example that anyone can relate to bugs. We all know are unclean
Or the bible speaks about like a dead dead animal. Yeah, of course, it's naturally just gross to touch a dead animal
Right, we know that I mean just seeing it it reminds you of how gross that would be
And what he's trying to do is just put this inside of your head of
Sinful things saying it's unclean. It's dirty have nothing to do with it
Look every time you see a bug creeping around that's the thought that ought to enter your mind
It's like unclean things. I won't have nothing to do with
Not just with eating that or touching that but I don't want to have anything to do with sin
Right or a dead animal you see I mean, it's gross, you know
I go walking around a lot
There's dead frogs or dead cats or dead rats that have been hit and you know
They haven't picked them up off the road yet and you just see them and there's all these flies on them and bugs
It's gross
But it's a reminder of how gross and disgusting sin is
And I believe that's a big reason because you know a dead animal is extremely gross and nobody wants to touch it
But but what what are the animals that do touch it the bugs?
The bugs
Because they're gross
They're disgusting
And it's a reminder to us how gross and disgusting sin is right turn your bible to excess chapter eight
I mean for me of all these plagues
This is the one that just really grosses me out thinking about it because you know
The 10 plagues are very interesting as you're reading about them
and you know
A lot of the plagues. I mean if we lived through any of these they'd be horrible
But it's like you're reading about the hail and fire
And you're reading about darkness
And your darkness is a very scary thing. But if i'm not in darkness, it doesn't creep me out
But just thinking about lice. It's just like
It's disgusting, right?
But I think that's the feeling god wants you to have because he's trying to help you understand how disgusting and filthy sin
Is in our lives. It's an unclean thing. So we see the uncleanness of lice
Whatever too though we see the magicians cannot perform magic
And so the magicians are able to recreate the rod they're able to recreate the water and blood they're able to recreate the frogs
But notice what it says here verse 18 and the magicians did so with their enchantments to bring forth lice, but they could not
So there were lice upon man and upon beast
And so the magicians were not happy to have their hair filled with a hundred lice. They wanted too much
So they tried to recreate lice and create more
They're they're not the brightest guys. They're not the sharpest or smartest guys
but
They're not able to recreate the lice
and what that shows us is yes magic is real and
People can tap into demonic spirits and the devil and whatever that's out there and do things that are
impossible
and illogical
And are demonic and wrong
But they do not have free access to do whatever they want where god cannot stop them
And so god for whatever reason allows them to do
the first two plagues and also the
mini plague before the ten plagues of the rod turned into a snake
But here
He does not allow it right go to numbers 22 numbers 22
And it's not the only time we see this in the bible
and I want to show you a character in the bible by the name of balaam and
Balaam's obviously a pretty famous character in the bible and he's pretty well known because everybody knows the talking donkey, right?
It's like how he's smiting it and trying to talk to it and everything
So let's just read this story and see what the bible says here numbers 22 verse 1
And the children of israel set forward in pitching the plains of moab on this side jordan by jericho
And balaam the son of zippor saw all that israel had done to the amorites and moab was so afraid of the people
Because they were many and moab was distressed because of the children of israel and moab sent unto the elders of midian
Now should this company lick up all that around about us as the ox licketh up the grass of the field
And balaam the son of zippor was king of the moabites at that time
He sent messengers therefore into balaam the son of bayord of pether
Which is by the river the land of the children of his people to call him saying
Behold, there is a people come out from egypt behold
They cover the face of the earth and they abide over against me come now
Therefore I pray thee curse me this people for they are too mighty for me for adventure
I shall prevail though. We may smite them and then I may drive them out of the land for I want that
He whom thou blesses is blessed
And he whom thou curses is cursed
And so basically balaam, uh sends messengers to get balaam
And balaam is a religious prophet. We're going to see here
He's actually a religious false prophet the new testament tells us this
But he's calling balaam and he's asking balaam to curse the people because he's saying you have the power to basically bless a group of people
Or to curse a group of people and so basically he's calling on balaam to just curse a group of people
That's what it says in verse seven and the elders of moab and the elders of midian departed with the rewards of divination in their hand
And they came on a balaam and spake on them the words of balaam. Can you see this word?
uh divination
In verse seven and the rewards of divination
Is actually the financial gain that will happen but the divination is the magic that is being done, you know, uh, when when
Joseph was mad at his brothers. He made the statement. Don't you realize that a man such as I can certainly divine?
And so that was a wrong statement to make because you're essentially saying you're practicing sorcery
But divination is talking about like witchcraft talking about sorcery. And of course you look at religious
Prophets throughout history or various religions today. You look at like voodoo their prophets are going to do what they're going to use sorcery
You look at an albulario which some people would consider kind of like a religious prophet or whatever and they're doing sorcery, right?
Verse number eight and he said unto them watch here this night and i'll bring you word again
As the lord shall speak unto me and the prince of moab abode with balaam
God came on to balaam and said what men are these with me and balaam said unto god
Balaam the son of zipporah king of moab hath sent onto me saying behold
There's a people come out of egypt which covered the face of the earth come now
Curse me them for adventure. I shall be able to overcome them and drive them out
And god said unto balaam thou shalt not go with them
Thou shalt not curse the people for they are blessed
And so god specifically tells balaam you're not going to curse the people they're blessed. I'm not going to allow it now
If you were to just read the old testament you kind of get confused about this because with balaam
It's like, you know, he's a he's a prophet. He has some abilities might might think is he a good prophet
He's not a good prophet
He's a false prophet right, but I would say this that if you were to look at false prophets of religions in the world
Most of them probably think that they're good people. Most of them probably think they're doing god's work
They think what they're doing is actually good even though they're filled full of wickedness and do horrible things
They actually think that they're good people
Right. I believe that if you're looking at the sorcerers in excess chapter eight
We're going to see it in the next point that they think that they do things on behalf of god
They don't think that they're bad guys or anything, but they are
Right, and of course if you look at false prophets in the world today, like jehovah's witnesses leaders
Do you really think the leaders of jehovah's witnesses think that they're evil people they don't
They think what they're doing is good
They think they're converting people and doing the right thing. I mean mormon leaders they think that
When in reality, they're actually wicked and evil people and from an outsider standpoint
It's kind of hard to see this because it's like it's clear they're evil
But yet they don't realize it and balaam does not realize he's a bad guy
He thinks he's a good guy and you know, god is actually speaking to him and god says no
You're not going to curse his people
That's what it says in verse 13 and balaam rose up in the morning and said unto the prince of balac
Get you into your land for the lord
Refuseth to give me leave to go with you now go to jude one
I want to show you what the new testament says about balaam
Because you might ask well why why would he even be willing to curse these people
What what does this have to do with balaam, you know, what's what's the story about now?
Now jude chapter one is
A chapter that talks about false prophets. It is a parallel chapter to second peter chapter two
And what I mean by parallel chapter is it tells the exact same information, but it uses different words different phrases
And so obviously it's an important chapter because the bible essentially has the same chapter twice
But the wording is a little bit different in each of the chapters
There's a little bit of extra information a little bit, uh less in other areas depending on which chapter you're looking at
but here's what it says in jude, and let me just um
go back to
Verse number four
And it says there are certain men crept in unawares who are before old ordained to this condemnation
Ungodly men turn to the grace of our god into lasciviousness and denying the only lord god and our lord
Jesus christ, we're looking at people that are false prophets and they preach against the things of the bible
And of course when you're looking at people that are like a jehovah's witness
That's going door to door and trying to convert people i'd say that's an evil person
That doesn't mean that they realize that they're evil, but we realize that they're doing the work of the devil
They're trying to convince people that jesus did not bodily rise again. They're trying to convince people works get into heaven
It's evil. It's wicked, right?
But it doesn't necessarily mean that they know that now
Notice what it says in verse number eight likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh despise dominion and speak evil of dignities
Yeah, michael the archangel when continued with the devil
He disputed about the body of moses thirst not bring against him a railing accusation said the lord rebuked me
But these speak evil those things which they know not but what they know naturally as brute beasts in those things
They corrupt themselves and the bible is saying the people that are reprobates are like animals. They're like brute beasts
Right, you know an animal is being acting like an animal is essentially the curse of god in the bible
Nebuchadnezzar has that curse upon him for a short time
Actually quite a long time for several years
But then when people become reprobates, what are they doing? They're acting like animals
And sometimes specifically when you look at the lgbt people try to justify the lgbt and say but you know
This is normal because that's what they do in the animal kingdom
That's what they do under mother nature or whatever they say it's like you're proving our point they're acting like animals
That's not normal because we are not animals. We're human beings
We are not evolved apes. And so yeah, it's true that in the animal world they do that
They're filled full of just homosexuality and everything
But animals do a lot of disgusting things
I mean think about you know, the gross things I said that you know are things that obviously we should not eat
Isn't it true as much as you love your dog or a dog you've had before as much as I love my dog growing up
That they eat a lot of gross things
There's not much of a restraint to animals to what they eat
Because we as people it's like if something you know, and I don't like food going to waste but you know
If something's like rotten or something like that right it's like no i'm gonna stay away from it, right?
Animals don't really have much of restraint. They just basically just eat whatever is there and so
Acting like an animal is basically the curse of god, right?
Now notice what the bible says here in verse number nine yet. Michael the or verse 11
Woe unto them for they have gone in the way of kane. So one person that brings up is kane
What's kane known for killing his brother?
Right and if you cross reference, you know, you can actually find out from first john in genesis that when god basically gives kane an ultimatum
He says do right and you'll be accepted
Do wrong in sin life at the door kane chooses wrong
And so he kills his brother and when he actually kills him
He's already made the decision to reject god according to the bible, but kane is obviously a bad person
Now, is it possible for a normal person to commit murder and not be a reprobate?
Absolutely, but obviously if someone's a murderer that's it's a major sin
That's a sin. Most people are never going to commit and it says and ran greedily after the error of
Balaam
For reward remember the bible said the rewards of divination
What does it mean for reward? It's saying that he's doing it for money
Basically if you come to me and say hey curse this people it's like for the right price
I'll curse whoever you want
And for the right price i'll bless whoever you want
He doesn't care what's right. He doesn't care what's wrong. He doesn't care about the situation
He doesn't know about the situation, but if he's offered the money sure i'll curse them for the right price
So don't get this idea that balaam was a good guy
He was not a good prophet. He was a false prophet and he was willing to curse god's people
But the reason why he didn't is god rejected it
God stopped him
Now here's something we need to understand
God does allow false prophets to do certain things when it comes to those that practice sorcery
They're able to do certain things by the power of the devil
When it comes to those that don't practice sorcery, but are just preaching false religions. God allows them to exist
And preach false religions
And you know what? It's it's in god's hands and then just belongs onto god
And so it's just what god allows we have to just accept that but balaam was not a good guy
He was a horrible guy and so
We see that the magicians are able to perform magic
I'm sure that balaam was able at other times to bless or curse certain groups of people
But here god puts a stop to it and he did the same thing with the egyptians in excess separate back to excess separate
Excess separate
I mean
If if you get lice in in your hair, it's like you can get rid of it, right?
but if there's like a multitude of lice and it's like
everywhere
It's like even if you get rid of some of the lice it's going to come back right
I mean, how do you even sleep?
Because like with the frogs like it specifically said they're in the bed
So that's gonna be hard to sleep since you know, as we saw they're nocturnal most frogs
So they're awake at night and you know, they would be more apt to sleep during the day
So it'd be hard to sleep with the lice
I mean if I mean isn't it true sometimes you're trying to sleep at night and you've got like an itch
That just won't go away
You know, sometimes it's it's just like especially this is true in the philippines because it's a hot country that
You know, sometimes I take a shower earlier in the day
And then you throughout the day, you know, you might sweat a little bit and everything and then all of a sudden like i'm itching
At night, but i'm already taking a shower
And then it's like, you know, it's only a little bit so I feel I can deal with it
But it's just like bugging me
And so then all of a sudden I just take another shower because I cannot get rid of this itch
I cannot sleep as i'm itching right and so if you're gonna have lice
In your hair and on your body
I don't know how you could possibly fall asleep
I mean I just even talking about this now my my head's starting to itch just I don't know
it's like it's like when you hear someone talk about yawning then everyone's like
Right, it's like just talking about this all of a sudden, you know, I see people around the room are like scratching and everything like that
It's like I am too
And so I don't know how they would even sleep with this
But point number one we saw the uncleanness of lice and I think the the big point
God's trying to drive home is the uncleanness of sin
Is really a large reason why god has created bugs because they're just gross and disgusting and that's the way sin is
Number two, we see that magicians cannot perform magic
And then we see point number three lastly the finger of god because notice this statement in excess a verse 19
Then the magicians said unto pharaoh this is the finger of god
And pharaoh's heart was hardened and he hearkened not onto them as the lord had said
Remember pharaoh calls on to the magicians on the earlier plagues and I presume he says well
I'm not impressed by that you do the same, right?
And so they do the same they create the the rod into a serpent the water and blood they create the frogs
but then this is
That was the frogs were the last one they're able to do and at that point the magicians are like we can't do this
It's like it's a power that's greater than ours
Now you would think pharaoh would just give in at this point. It's like okay, whatever we're gonna lose this battle, but
They tell them this is the finger of god what they're basically saying is this is something that only god can do
We do not have the ability, you know
the reason why I think it says finger is because I would imagine with sorcerers you see this from like
movies and such they have like
Wand or whatever and it's like they throw it forward. It's like their hand goes forward or their finger goes forward they can like
Or whatever and what they're saying is we tried it's like
lice lice
Lice and it's just not happening and they're saying it's only god has this power to do this now
You certainly see from this they believe in god
I don't think that they're just saying this and I believe that they think that they're they're good
But they believe this is the power that only god has been given
This phrase finger of god is mentioned several times in scripture and I want to look through these go to excess 31 excess 31
Exes chapter 31
What the magicians are telling pharaoh is that this is something that only god can do
Anyway, there's a lot of things in life
that only god
Can do and we need to realize this
excess 31 verse 18
And he gave unto moses when he had made an end up communing with him upon mount sinai two tables of testimony tables of stone
written with the finger of god
And see when moses got the 10 commandments they were written with the finger of god
You know, we talked about in the sermon on saturday that that idiot christopher hitchens says the 10 commandments are proof. There is no god
Look man would not create the 10 commandments
They wouldn't
Especially when you think of the last commandment thou shalt not covet
Because it's like it's something that's so natural to all of us
All of us struggle with covetousness now if you're only thinking about money
Maybe you don't struggle with covetousness of money, but all of us struggle with wanting things
That don't belong to us. I mean i've said this to people at soul winning
It's like, you know when they're they're acting like they've never sinned and I was like I brought up coveting
I was like, well, I mean do you want to be a pro basketball player?
Right or something like that. Like yeah, I want to be lebron james like well, that's coming that's sin. That's wrong
It's like you're not six foot eight. It's not going to happen, right?
You want something that doesn't belong to you and all of us we struggle with that
You know somebody has something that is somebody's better than us at something or they have more and we want what they have covetousness
Right associated with envenus and things such as that as well
But it's just like when you look at the ten commandments, it's just like the beauty of what god wrote
Men wouldn't create those he wouldn't write those right and when you look at the entire bible that god has created
It's like you see what god wrote and if we as men
Because I I find it ridiculous when people try to tell you well the bible is just written by man
It's like how could men
That lived
a long distance from each other
thousands of years apart from one another
Have wrote things that perfectly line up
That make this the most wonderful book on science and history and everything the most poetic majestic the greatest literary work
How could random people in prison create the greatest literary work ever?
It's like there's no explaining it except it's the finger of god
Because man didn't write the bible was the finger of god
And you know, i'll be honest. I didn't really read the bible and you know
The thing about this is the the bible was was not written for the natural man
The unsafe people the unsafe person cannot understand the bible now unsafe people do see certain things in the bible
They say wow, it's majestic. It's amazing, but they oftentimes just don't get it
But I remember after being saved and then I opened up the bible and i'm just like
I'm, just blown away. I'm i'm amazed just reading the stories just they came to life to me like never before
Because obviously, you know, I had sunday school growing up and and uh vacation bible school and those things
But yeah, I wasn't saved so I didn't really get it and then after being saved you read the bible
It's like this was written with the finger of god
And one way you can look at this
Because at our church at least in the english language we believe that the king james bible is the word of god
We believe that other bibles have errors
They've made changes and I don't believe that god is confound to one language because I don't think that they're speaking english up in heaven
I think that god is outside of languages. I think that you could have a perfect bible in any any language
You could translate it could be perfect
Now obviously translating will be a very difficult thing
But I do believe that you know, the word of god can be in any language
But here's what i'll say in the when it when it comes to english bibles that if you read what the king james says
And if you read what the nib says
Even if you don't know all the facts or all the history or all the errors in these modern versions I can just tell
What's the finger of god?
And what's not the finger of god?
It would be like somebody that is a very unskilled person trying to create counterfeit money
And it's it would be like no, it's it's just like this is the real thing
This is the false thing, it's kind of like, you know when when the philippines they first had the new 1000 peso bill
I mean it seemed very fake right that seemed like something like personally was unskilled would make it just
Seemed very fake compared to what they had before or whatever
But what i'm saying is it's not hard, you know when you're saying if you pick up the king james bible
It's like I can just tell this is the word of god
I can just tell when I read it and look i've read
books of other false religions for the purposes of preaching against them
And there's a huge difference. The bhagavad-gita is a bunch of nonsense. It's
Horrible writing it's boring. It makes no sense
It's bizarre and it's like as a safe person you can just pick this up and realize
This was written with the finger of god
um go to your bible luke 11
Deuteronomy chapter 9 also talked about the two tables of stone written with the finger of god
Um luke 11, we'll see one other reference here
luke 11
This is why when when we're we're thinking about uh, you know
The creation of this world during the science versus the bible series. It's just so laughable to me what scientists say
It's like it's clear that the universe and the earth and the sun and the moon and the stars was created with what?
with the finger of god
This idea that it could create it's like you got to be kidding me. There are certain things in this world
That only god has the power to do
Because people stop and things like the virgin birth like you believe in the virgin birth
You believe that a giant whale swallowed jonah
It's like yes, I do because when you believe that god can do the impossible and he has power to do anything he wants
It's like I don't doubt the power of god
And they look at it and they think it's ridiculous
But i'm just thinking the things you believe are ridiculous
And then you're gonna laugh and scoff at the things that we believe
It's like yeah, I do believe there are certain things that are done with the finger of god that no I cannot understand
I can't comprehend
I could not even begin to try to recreate because I couldn't do it
It'd be impossible
I'm, not foolish enough to think I can just sit inside a laboratory and just try to create life like scientists do no
It's like certain things are in the hand only of god to be able to do
It says in luke 11 verse 14
He was casting out a devil and it was dumb and it came to pass when the devil was gone out
The dumb spake and the people wonder
But some of them said he cast out devils through bills above the chief of the devils and when it's saying he's dumb
It's what is the word pp? Is that the word and you know, basically not being able to speak a mute
And basically when it's cast out
They're amazed because a person that has been you know mute or or dumb
Their whole life is able to speak
And others tempting him sought of him a sign from heaven
But he knowing their thoughts said to them every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation and house divided against the house followed
If satan also be divided against himself house those kingdoms stand because he said that I cast out devils through bills above
And if I buy bills above cast out devils by whom your son's casting out. Therefore shall they be your judges and
What he's saying is that what they're accusing him of is
casting out devils through the devil
uh, basically
It's the same accusation that
We would make
To like people that practice voodoo. They're using the power of devil the devil to do miracles
We would say that about like albolaros whatever magic they do. They're doing things by the power of the devil
right
If people are you know, uh at services like pentecostal services and they're casting out devils whatever they're doing
They're doing by the power of the devil
Right, of course when we make statements like that
They accuse us of blaspheming the holy ghost sometimes because you're saying we're doing it by the power. Yes
I'm saying that you're not jesus and you're doing it by the power of the devil
And that was something only he gave the apostles the power to do
But then he says
In verse 20, but if I with a finger of god cast out devils
No doubt the kingdom of god has come upon you
So he's saying you're accusing me of doing things by the power of devils
Well, it's going to be one or the other either i'm doing this by the power of the devil
Or i'm doing this with the finger of god
But the thing that kind of sticks with them
And it's kind of like a backhand slap is what he just did is something they cannot do
He's making someone who's dumb to speak and he's basically saying I did something that you don't have the power to do
Why because it's with the finger of god. He's referencing them back to what was in excess chapter eight
Because it mentions the finger of god a few times but the big one we think of is exodus eight
And what is it it's the sorcerers have the ability to do a lot of things
But then all of a sudden it's like you do not have the ability to do this
And he said you think you're so special for the things that you've done
But let me tell you something what I did was the finger of god. You cannot recreate it
You cannot do it what they are accusing jesus of doing and being is a sorcerer and here's the thing
Judaism teaches today that jesus was a sorcerer. That is what they teach in the talmud
They say in the talmud that jesus is boiling and hot excrement
Or hot tithe for all eternity
For being a sorcerer. That's what it says about jesus in the talmud the beloved jews
That love god so much and are god's chosen people. They blaspheme the name above all names jesus christ
It's like no, they do not love the god of the bible because what you must understand
Is that when jesus was crucified and rose again?
You basically have two of those groups of people
Those that believed on christ and got saved and those that stayed in judaism and what remained are those that rejected jesus
And they rejected god
And modern day judaism if you're thinking of one religion that blasphemes god there it's it's none other than than judaism
Because there's anything about this, you know, obviously muslims are wrong and hindus are wrong and buddhists are wrong
But all of them will say nice things about jesus
Judaism says nothing nice
About jesus christ. They they say that he's a sorcerer
They say that he's a bastard the son of panera
In the talmud that mary basically cheated on joseph because they reject the virgin birth. Obviously, they say nothing good about jesus christ
But what jesus said is you know what I did this with the finger of god
And this is something you do not have the power to do go to matthew chapter 19
matthew 19
So
No, I definitely believe
that
God can still perform miracles today
I think on a small level probably all of us have experienced certain things that seem
Extraordinary or it's not just luck that it happened the way it happened
Not a miracle such as this but we've seen things where you can definitely feel like the the hand of god
Intervening and helping out in this situation. I've definitely experienced that I think all of us can say that we've experienced that in our life
I definitely believe that god can still perform miracles
But there's no modern day apostles that are going to walk around and you got the shadow of me and now you're healed
Right you you shake my hand and your disease is just going to fly away
Right, I go
And then all of a sudden it's gone. I touch your head and then all of a sudden, you know after you know
Doing this on the ground for 10 minutes you're healed
That doesn't happen
In today's world, by the way, when when when they were healing people back then I don't think that's that's how they got healed either
Where it's like, you know like this
right, it's like
But there are no modern day apostles and I do believe miracles still can be performed today
But
Only by the power of god
And we can pray for them and I do believe that god can answer prayers and we should pray and god can answer prayers
But it's going to be up to god at the end of the day
And it's going to be by the finger of god the power of god because these are things that are
Outside of our control. So what we can do is we can let god know what our wishes are
But it's up to god
Matthew 19 verse 24
And again, I say unto you it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle
Than for a rich man to enter in the kingdom of god
When his disciples heard it, they were exceedingly amazed saying who then could be saved
But jesus beheld them and said of them with men this is impossible
But with god all things are possible anyway, did you know that for somebody to get saved with men this is impossible
It honestly is impossible
For us to get people saved on our own
I mean if we don't have god's word
And god's power is not upon us if we're not filled with the holy ghost. It's impossible
You can't get somebody saved without the power of god with men this is impossible
And he's answering this direct thing, but
He's saying with all things
So even outside this is like you look at something that seems so hard, you know
Sometimes there could be people that seem like they're never going to get saved
I i've known people my life people that are relatives of mine people that I was around and I just thought to myself
They are never going to get saved
And then now I think back and you know
And and usually when you think that it usually ends up being true
Usually they never get saved
But then I I do know people that have gotten saved that I never thought would get saved and I gave the gospel to
I gave the gospel to I gave the gospel to
And it's just like they're mad and it's just awkward all the time and now I can look back and say with men
This is impossible
But with god all things are possible. I never thought that they would ever get saved but they did
but even outside that
With things in life with us, it's impossible. We look at certain things in our life
We we try to do things on our own sometimes. It's impossible anything. It could never happen. You're right. It could never happen
in our own power
It could never happen by what we do but with god all things are possible
And I do believe sometimes in life. God is trying to get us to reach this point where we realize that without him
We are helpless
Because when we think that we don't really need god
And we don't pray to god much we don't read the bible we just try to figure things out on our own
It's it's like we're trying to take away glory from god
I do believe sometimes and i've seen in my life where god kind of just kind of teaches me lessons saying
Hey, you know what? I need you to trust in me with all your heart and rely on me and realize
That without me you can do nothing
Because with men this is impossible. But with god all things are possible. Let's close the word of prayer your heavenly father
Thank you for allowing us to be here today and thank you for us
Being able to see the scripture here in exit 8 and learn lessons from this god
Help us to remember these things and help us to realize that in life
We need to rely on you and trust in you with all of our heart god
And ask you to bless our church and bless all the families at our church
I ask you to be with all the prayer requests that all of us have
Um, and I ask you to help us in all areas of our lives god. We pray this in. Jesus name. Amen