(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Man, Exodus chapter number 7, the Bible reads in verse number 1, And the Lord said unto Moses, See, I have made thee a god to Pharaoh, and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet. This is a really interesting verse at the beginning of chapter 7 here, and I think what God is really trying to show us with this verse, is that when someone speaks on behalf of God, or they speak the word of God, that is just as authoritative as if it were coming out of the mouth of Christ Himself, physically walking on this earth. For example, the Apostle Paul wrote that those in Thessalonica, he said unto them, he said that when you received the word of God, which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe. The Bible says that all scripture is given by inspiration of God. And so, whether it's Moses, or the Psalms, or the Old Testament, New Testament, all of it is the word of God. So the Bible, when it says here, I've made thee a god to Pharaoh, obviously this isn't teaching that there are multiple gods, or that man can become God, but when he says I've made you a god to Pharaoh, he's basically saying you're going to be the mouthpiece of God to Aaron, to Pharaoh, you're going to speak God's word, and the Bible even says in the New Testament, if any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God. So we need to realize that whether it's Jesus, or whether it's the Apostle Paul, or John, it doesn't matter, it's all the word of God, if it's the Bible. And when someone is quoting the Bible, or reading the Bible, they are speaking the word of God, and it's as if God is speaking to us. You know, a lot of times people will say, you know, on what authority can you say that, you're not God, you know, how can you know who's going to go to heaven, and who's going to go to hell, you're not God to know that. But, you know, the Bible tells us we have the mind of Christ. And if I have a scripture that says, these things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may believe on the name of the Son of God, then I know I have eternal life. And if I say that, it's just as if God said it. Or if anyone said it, if they're quoting scripture, they're speaking the word of God, and so he said, I've made thee a God to Pharaoh. You see, Pharaoh was not visited by God himself in bodily form, was he? But he made Moses a God unto Pharaoh, because he was basically the mouthpiece of God to Pharaoh. And then he said, Aaron, thy brother, shall be thy prophet. Now, another important truth that we can learn from this verse is that we can understand what does it mean to be a prophet. Because Moses is actually speaking the word to Aaron, and then Aaron just repeats what he heard from Moses to Pharaoh, right? So Moses says to Aaron, here's what you're going to say. And then Aaron says that, okay? So that's what it's like to be Moses' prophet. Well, this is a great illustration to help us understand what does it mean in the Old Testament when the prophets of God spake and said, thus saith the Lord. It means that they were not the author of the words that they were speaking. They didn't come up with it out of their own heart or dream it up in their own mind. They are simply repeating what God told them. And so just as Aaron repeated what Moses told him, the prophets of old repeated what God told them. So there's a lot of great truth packed into this verse to help us understand the nature of God's word. That no matter who's saying it, it's still God's word. And that it's not of any private interpretation, but rather holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. Isaiah did not just come up with the prophecies of the book of Isaiah on his own, but rather just as Aaron repeated what Moses told him, Isaiah was just simply repeating prophecies that were given him by the Lord. He was the mouthpiece of God. So it says in verse 2, Thou shalt speak all that I command thee, and Aaron thy brother shall speak unto Pharaoh, that he send the children of Israel out of his land. So even today in 2019, the preacher's job or the prophet's job is to speak everything that God has told us, just to repeat the word of God. Whatever God says in the Bible, we're to preach all of it, not to add to it or diminish therefrom, but to faithfully teach all of what God has in his word. And so it hasn't changed today. It says in verse 3, And I will harden Pharaoh's heart and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt. But Pharaoh shall not hearken unto you that I may lay my hand upon Egypt and bring forth mine armies and my people, the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great judgments. And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord when I stretch forth mine hand upon Egypt and bring out the children of Israel from among them. So this is an example of where God is hardening someone's heart because he has a plan or a purpose, and he wants to be glorified in this. And one of the places that you'll see this is in John chapter 12. If you want to flip over there real quick, that's a good place to go to illustrate this about God hardening people's hearts. And while you're turning to John chapter 12, let me remind you of the story of Eli and his sons. Because if you remember, Eli's sons were very wicked. They lay with the women that assembled by the door of the congregation. So they're actually using church as a place to troll for fornication and adultery, which is probably the most wicked thing you could imagine doing. And so Eli's sons are committing all these horrible sins, and then Eli rebukes his sons. But then the Bible says that they did not hearken unto Eli because the Lord would slay them. So what the Bible is basically saying there is that God actually wanted to kill the sons of Eli, so he made sure that they did not hearken unto their dad. He basically hardened their hearts and made sure that they would continue on that wicked path because he wanted to destroy them. He didn't want them to repent at that point and get right, and then he'd forgive them and move on and so forth. Why? Because they'd already done so much wickedness that he was done with them, okay? They were reprobate to him. That's why it even said that they were the sons of Baaliel. And when you see people in the Bible being called the sons of Baaliel or the children of the devil, these people are reprobates, okay? Now look at John chapter 12 so you can see this from the mouth of Jesus himself. It says in verse number 37, But though he had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on him. Now isn't that kind of similar to the Egyptians and Pharaoh where they're seeing all these miracles, but they just keep hardening their heart and not believing. That the saying of Isaiah as the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spake, Lord, who hath believed our report and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed? Therefore they could not believe, because that Isaiah said again he hath blinded their eyes and hardened their heart that they should not see with their eyes nor understand with their heart and be converted and I should heal them. Now this is a very clear scripture. It's pretty hard for anybody to walk away from this and not understand the fact that there are some people who are incapable of believing on Christ. They cannot believe in Christ because their eyes have been blinded, their heart has been hardened, their understanding has been darkened, and again Romans 1 explains this very clearly as well, how people go down this downward spiral and then God gives them up and God gives them over. Now this is not Calvinism. We do not believe in Calvinism or what's sometimes called predestination. We do not believe that God just foreordains people to hell and that they do not have a choice in the matter. That is not what this is teaching. Rather what this is teaching is that people, because of their own free will, can make bad decisions and reject the Lord. When he shows them the light, they reject the light. They love darkness more than light. They harden their heart. They turn away from the truth. They change the truth of God into a lie and worship and serve the creature more than the Creator. They do these things and then as a result they cross a line where now God gives them up. God gives them over. God hardens their heart. God blinds their eyes. You see, initially Pharaoh rejected Moses and the Word of God on his own. But then it comes to a point where God is going to harden his heart and God is going to make sure that he gets the full punishment. Now why would God harden Pharaoh's heart like that? If you want to go back over to Exodus chapter 7, why would God do this? You know, you look at this and you say, why would God, if God wants the children of Israel to be free from Egypt, why would he harden Pharaoh's heart? I mean, if he wants them to leave, why not just let Pharaoh see a few miracles, go through a few plagues and then say, okay, fine, you know, get out of here. And then everybody's happy. Everybody gets to go home early. The reason why he hardens Pharaoh's hearts is because he wants to pour out more wrath. Okay, he wants to do all ten plagues. He doesn't want to do five plagues. He doesn't want to do seven plagues. He wants to do all ten plagues. In order to do all ten plagues, he needs Pharaoh to keep saying no ten times in a row so that he can do all the plagues. Now why does he want to do all the plagues? Well, a couple of reasons. First of all, because the Egyptians were very wicked and they deserved to have all ten plagues come upon them. They didn't deserve to get off that easy for Pharaoh to back down after a couple of plagues. They deserved the full punishment that was coming. Okay. And then number two, God wanted to be more glorified. You know, the Bible says here in verse number four, But Pharaoh should not hearken unto you, that I may lay my hand upon Egypt and bring forth mine armies and my people the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt, watch this, by great judgments. It's not enough just to bring them out. He wants to bring them out in style. He wants to bring them out with a bang. He wants to bring them out with great judgments. He wants to really do some shock and awe with these ten plagues because not only is it for the Egyptians to know how powerful God is, because look at verse five, And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord when I stretch forth mine hand upon Egypt and bring out the children of Israel from among them. Not only would the Egyptians know his power and might, but even we today who would read this will continue to know his power, his might, his judgment. And so these plagues are going to be something that resonate for thousands of years for people to look back and understand God's punishment, God's wrath, and they are a foreshadowing of the end times. Because if we study the book of Revelation, we'll see that the plagues of Revelation are very similar to the plagues of Egypt, and so this is a precursor to that. God had a plan here to really punish Egypt hard, just like he wanted to punish the sons of Eli hard, and didn't want them to just get off the hook at that point. So it says in verse number five, And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord when I stretch forth mine hand upon Egypt and bring out the children of Israel from among them. And Moses and Aaron did as the Lord commanded them, so did they. And Moses was fourscore years old, that's 80 years old, score means 20, so Aaron fourscore and three years old, so that's 83 years old, four times 20, fourscore, when they spake unto Pharaoh. So these guys are old, I mean they're 80 and 83 respectively, and what that should tell you is that you can still do great works for God later in life. So don't just think to yourself, oh, I'm 55, you know, certain places are giving me a senior discount, so, you know, I'm pretty much done doing great things for God. No, you're not. You know, I hope that God will allow me to do great works when I'm 55, 65, 75, even 85. And, you know, there are people who stay sharp in the mind even into their 80s and 90s. I mean, I've spoken to many people whose intellect impressed me greatly even in their 90s. Okay, now why is that? Well, I'm sure that there's a certain genetic element to it, but I'll tell you a big part of it is that if you keep using your brain, you will be sharp longer. And if you allow your brain to atrophy, it's just like any other part of your body, if you allowed your muscles to atrophy or your heart or your lungs or anything else, it's not going to last as long. If you want your brain to last a long time, you have to use your brain. So if you want to go senile early, just spend a lot of time just sitting around and watching TV and just not using your brain. You know, any kind of just passive form of entertainment is not strengthening your brain. You should always have some kind of an activity that strains your brain a little bit. Now, look, reading is a great activity. Obviously, reading the Bible is a great activity, but reading alone is still not enough to keep your brain sharp into your 70s, 80s, and 90s because it's a little bit passive, just reading. You have to do something where you're actually straining your brain. And if you think about it, memory is basically accessing all these files in your mind. And has someone ever told you something, and as soon as they told it to you, you're like, oh, yeah, I remember that, and then boom, that means it was in your brain somewhere all along. But you didn't remember it until they told you the answer. Oh, yeah, I know that, right? So what that is is the information is in your brain, but you're just having trouble accessing it, right? There's all these just aisles of file cabinets and all this information, and you don't know where to look. You don't know where to access that information. Does everybody understand what I'm saying? So you have all this memory that's just kind of lost in there. It's in a folder that you can't find, okay? So using your memory and using your brain is training your brain to be able to find that information, to be able to find that missing file, to be able to call upon those things. And so you have to use your memory and use your brain if you want to stay sharp. So not just reading, that's not enough. You should also do some Bible memory, all right? That's going to help train your memory banks and how to access that information. And not even just Bible memory, but things like learning foreign language, even something like doing a crossword puzzle, okay, which is making you draw from all these random facts when you do a crossword puzzle, and you're straining your brain trying to remember things. Those type of things can help you stay sharp. So make sure that you don't just become a person who lets their mind go to waste and just sits around watching TV, reading, whatever. Do something that makes your mind work, okay? And maybe your job makes your brain work, and that's great. Then at least your job will help keep your mind young. But if you want to do great works for God when you're 80 years old, like Moses and Aaron and people like that, you're going to have to stay somewhat physically fit, and you're going to have to stay mentally fit. And it's not going to happen by accident, okay? You have to use your brain and use your body. And so I don't want to go any further than that, but I just want to encourage you that are older to keep serving God, and I would encourage you that are in middle age to start taking steps now so that you can be an 80-year-old that serves God and not be a physical, or even worse, a mental wreck. I would rather have any part of my body just fail or atrophy than my brain. The one thing I would like to keep is my mind, all right? So even if I lose use of my other body parts, my legs or my hands, you want to keep everything, but the last thing to go is the brain, all right? When your brain's gone, that's a sad state to be in. So be sure that you take care of your brain, and TV rots your brain, amen? I've heard that my whole life, and it's very true. So it says in verse 7 that they're four score years old, four score and three years old respectively, verse 8. And the Lord spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying, When Pharaoh shall speak unto you, saying, Show a miracle for you. Then thou shalt say unto Aaron, Take thy rod and cast it before Pharaoh, and it shall become a serpent. And Moses and Aaron went in unto Pharaoh, and they did so as the Lord had commanded. And Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh and before his servants, and it became a serpent. Then Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers. Now the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments, for they cast down every man his rod, and they became serpents. But Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods. All right, so this is, of course, a great story where Moses throws down his rod. It turns into a serpent. That was the miracle that God instructed him to do. So then Pharaoh's satanic sorcerer magicians, okay, and of course we know in the New Testament that their names are Janus and Jambres, even though it doesn't give us their names here. These sorcerers of Pharaoh, they come in, and they use witchcraft and black magic to throw down their rods and turn them into serpents. And of course this shows, as well as other places in the Bible, that Satan has power. Satan will do lying signs and wonders, and he can do things that are supernatural, and so we need to beware of these dark forces and dark arts, magic, witchcraft, sorcery, and things like that. But the thing about it is that God's power is obviously greater than the devil's power. And not only that, whenever we see that the devil counterfeits something, God and his work is always so much greater, okay. Because isn't this a counterfeit? You know, here's Moses doing the miracle that God instructs, and then they come in and counterfeit it, right, with a weaker version because their snakes get eaten up by Moses' snake, okay. So think about all the counterfeit Bibles that are out there. You know, you've got the true Word of God preserved in the King James Bible, and then you have these counterfeit Bibles out there, whether it's the NIV or the New American Standard or whatever, these Bibles that remove entire verses and change things and corrupt doctrine. Well, here's the thing about that. The King James eats them up and spits them out. It chews them up and swallows them. Because no matter how hard these guys try, no one has ever been able to come up with a Bible version that can rival the King James Version. That's why they have to keep changing it and coming up with a new one. The King James Bible is unchanged for 400 years, and don't let anybody tell you different. There's a replica in the back of the auditorium so that you can see that it's unchanged. Yes, there have been a few typos that were corrected. The font has changed. The spellings have changed. But the words are the same words, the same wording, the same translation of 1611 is what we're reading from tonight in 2019. But the ESV is going to change again in 2020. It changes every four or five years. It has to constantly be redone and reworked. And even though it's called the English Standard Version, it'll never be the standard. Did you know that naming it standard doesn't make it the standard? Does it? No, that doesn't make... What's the standard? The standard is the one by which all others are judged. Is that what the ESV is? Does everyone judge every Bible like, well, how does it measure the ESV? No, they measure by the King James. Because the King James is the rock. The King James is God's diamond, okay? And these other versions are the ones that Satan has counterfeited and the King James can swallow them up and wipe them out, okay? And that's just one example of how God's work destroys the devil's work, okay? The Bible says, for this purpose, the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil, right? And so we see here that, yeah, they can do the same with their enchantments, but it's inferior to God's work. Verse 13, he hardened Pharaoh's heart that he hearkened not unto them as the Lord had said. And I believe that verse 13 is alluding to the fact that Pharaoh's heart is hardened partially because of the fact that his magicians do the same thing. I think that's the implication that's there, is that Moses does this miracle, which is pretty impressive, but then when Satan comes in and counterfeits it, then that's where Pharaoh, you know, his heart's hardened at that point. That's kind of Pharaoh's excuse for not believing in it, like, well, my guys can do the same thing, you know? And he's just kind of purposely ignoring the fact that his serpents were eaten up by Moses' serpent, okay? So it says in verse 14, and the Lord said unto Moses, Pharaoh's heart is hardened. He refuses to let the people go. Get thee unto Pharaoh in the morning. Lo, he goeth out unto the water, and thou shalt stand by the river's brink against he come, and the rod which was turned to a serpent shalt thou take in thine hand. Now, that is not a typo in your Bible. This is just archaic grammar when it says against he come. That is actually a grammatical construction that's used a few times in the King James Bible. It's just an old, whatever shall we do? I can't figure out what this verse means. Actually, I know exactly what this verse means, because even when the Bible in the King James Version, because it's 400 years old, uses archaic grammar, it really doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what's being said. So even though this isn't how we talk today, we would never say against he come. When you read the verse, it's pretty hard to walk away from this verse not knowing what it's about. Get thee unto Pharaoh in the morning. Everybody got it? Lo, he goeth out unto the water. Got it. And thou shalt stand by the river's brink against he come, and the rod which was turned to a serpent shalt thou take in thine hand. Basically, it's saying you go out to the river's brink basically waiting for him to show up. So against is sort of like you would say the table is against the wall. So it's talking about location. So basically, they're there at the river's brink against he come. Strange way of saying it, but you can totally understand it, no problem. All right, and then it says in verse 16, And thou shalt say unto him, The Lord God of the Hebrews hath sent me unto thee, saying, Let my people go, that they may serve me in the wilderness. And behold, hitherto thou wouldst not hear. Thus saith the Lord, In this thou shalt know that I am the Lord. Behold, I will smite with the rod that is in mine hand upon the waters which are in the river, and they shall be turned to blood. And the fish that is in the river shall die, and the river shall stink, and the Egyptians shall loathe to drink of the water of the river. Loathe is another word for hate, loathe, despise, right? So they're going to just be disgusted by this water. They will loathe to drink of the water of the river. Now why this particular miracle? Why turn the water into blood and make them drink blood? Well, if you would flip over to Revelation chapter 16. We'll come back to Exodus 7 in a moment. But go to Revelation chapter 16 and remember that a little bit earlier in the Book of Exodus, the Egyptians have shed innocent blood, have they not? First of all, they were murdering babies, okay? They were actually just killing babies as they were born. They were killing the Hebrew children. And then they moved to a policy of throwing them into the river, drowning them in the river. And when you murder innocent life, God will punish. And the Bible makes it clear that God will not pardon innocent blood. Whoso shedeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God made he men. And we see that there were times in the life of the kings, for example, with Josiah, you know, where he brought great revival. And everything seems like it's going to be great because they're all worshiping the Lord now and, you know, people have turned back to God. But then God talks about how he's still going to have to bring judgment on the nation because of the innocent blood that Manasseh shed, which the Lord would not pardon. Okay, so God is not one that just looks the other way at the shedding of innocent blood. There will be a reckoning for that. It has to happen. It's God's justice that demands that, okay? Now, when it comes to personal salvation, obviously, if you have shed innocent blood in your life and then you have believed on the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, then that sin is forgiven. But the reason why is because Jesus took the punishment for your sin, so that punishment has been meted out. I mean, that atonement has been made. So God did require that innocent blood, but Jesus paid for it, okay? But that's in regard to the person who has their faith and trust in Jesus. What about a nation? Or what about people who don't have their trust in Jesus, right? I mean, don't most people in this world reject the Lord Jesus Christ? They don't believe on the Son of God? And so when it comes to a nation like America that has shed so much innocent blood through institutionalized abortion, also wars of aggression, killing men, women, and children that are civilian non-combatants, there's been all kinds of murder and bloodshed that has taken place, and our nation will be punished for it, okay? And so we see Egypt, they have shed much innocent blood, not only have they murdered babies, but they had also enslaved the children of Israel and beaten them to the point where they drew blood, where the children of Israel are bleeding and in many cases even dying under cruel bondage, okay? So that's why God is giving them blood to drink. Look at Revelation 16, 5. And I heard the angel of the waters say, thou art righteous, O Lord, which art and wast and shalt be, because thou hast judged thus. For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink, for they are worthy. They are worthy means they deserve it. They are worthy to drink blood. They deserve to drink blood because they shed the blood of saints and prophets. Verse 7, and I heard another out of the altar say, even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are thy judgments. And sometimes people have the idea that the Old Testament God is so much harsher than the New Testament God, but here we are at the very end of the New Testament, the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, and what do we see here in chapter 16? He says, give them blood to drink, they're worthy. And he is one day going to turn the water into blood. It said in chapter 16, verse 4, and the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters, and they became blood. So this miracle of turning the water into blood in Egypt is going to be repeated in the end times to pay back the wicked people of this world for all the innocent blood that they've shed, the murders that they've committed, and especially for shedding the blood of God's people. The children of Israel, the Hebrews, were God's chosen people, and that's who they were specifically murdering. Revelation 16 talks about them shedding the blood of saints. Saints means those who are holy. Every single Christian, every person who is saved, biblically, is called a saint. Very easy to prove that from the New Testament. There's just certain people who the Catholic Church decides they've achieved sainthood or something like that. Wrong. Every believer in Jesus Christ, everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord by faith and becomes a child of God is a saint. They are holy in that sense. But you know what? Every little baby is also holy in the sense that it is pure. It's a pure child, and that's why if a baby dies, it's going to go straight to heaven. And so it is innocent would be another way of saying that. And so when you're murdering the innocent, when you're murdering God's people, when you're murdering the saints, when you're murdering preachers or prophets, these things incur the wrath of God greatly. And so drinking blood is a perfect punishment for these people. Now look, seven days they had to endure this. They're digging by the side of the river trying to find water to drink because they don't want to drink that blood. They loathed to drink the blood. But they had to because how do you survive? How do you survive for seven days with no water? You can't. You're going to be dead at the end of seven days. I mean rarely somebody who just isn't moving could barely survive seven days without water. I mean that is the absolute limit by the way. But most people after three days without water are pretty much at the point of death. Some people will be trapped under rubble and they're just stuck and seven days later they're just barely alive or something. But if you're going about your daily life, you cannot go seven days without drinking water. So these people are forced to drink blood. I mean how nasty is that? But that's just one of the ways that they can get some fluid into their bodies. So you know I think God did that length of time just to make sure they all had to taste a little bit of it and drink a little bit of it. And that's their punishment. So again it's coming soon to a nation near you, okay? Because of the fact that we've done the same thing in our country. We're spiritually like Egypt and so blood to drink is on its way. Thankfully we as God's people will be gone before that point. We're going to be gone before the trumpets and vials of God's wrath are poured out. We will be here for the tribulation and the anti-Christ. But after the tribulation the sun and moon will be darkened. Christ will come in the clouds. We'll be caught up together with him and then he'll begin to pour out his wrath. That's when the water is turned to blood. Shortly thereafter if you know your timeline of the book of Revelation. So back in chapter 7 of Exodus, the Bible says in verse 19, The Lord spake unto Moses, Say unto Aaron, Take thy rod and stretch out thine hand upon the waters of Egypt, upon their streams, upon their rivers, and upon their ponds, and upon all their pools of water, that they may become blood, and that there may be blood throughout all the land of Egypt, both in vessels of wood and in vessels of stone. So you say, well, you know, I have a big water tank. You know, I was prepared for this. Even that stuff turned into blood. I mean, he just turned all the water into blood. All right. Even in vessels of wood and in vessels of stone he turned it into blood. So these people are going to drink blood one way or the other or they're just going to die. And so they had to drink it. Verse 20, And Moses and Aaron did so as the Lord commanded, and he lifted up the rod and smote the waters that were in the river in the sight of Pharaoh and in the sight of his servants. And all the waters that were in the river were turned to blood. And the fish that was in the river died. By the way, the Bible mentioned this in the end times as well in Revelation, that the fish will die when God turns the water into blood. It says that the fish died. And then verse 21, And the river stank and the Egyptians could not drink of the water of the river. And there was blood throughout all the land of Egypt because they can't drink it now because it's got the dead fish in it. OK, so it's getting even more nasty. And the magicians of Egypt did so with their enchantment. So this is hilarious to me. Hey, guys, can you do it the other way? Isn't it interesting how the magicians can turn the water into blood, too? Hey, we can turn water into blood. OK, now can you guys change it back? Wouldn't that be a little more helpful if the magicians of Egypt could have turned blood into water? But notice that they don't. And throughout this whole process, they can only bring harm and destruction, but they can never undo the work of God, number one. And number two, they can never do anything productive or wholesome. So, you know, they can bring plagues. They can turn water into blood. You know, hey, we can bring some flies. We can bring, but you can't make them go away. So what does this show you? It shows you, yeah, the devil has power, but his power is only destructive power. He does not have a creative life giving power. And then later, by the way, there's a miracle that the magicians cannot duplicate where Moses brings the lice. You know, and they could not duplicate that miracle. And they said, well, this is the finger of God. Why is that? Because they can't create life. And by the way, neither can the evolutionary biologist down at ASU. He can't create life either. And you could give him all the chemicals in the periodic table. You could give him all the bunsen burners he wants. And you know what? He can never bring anything to life. Because life begets life, and only God can create life. The devil could not bring life. He could not bring healing. He could not bring health. He could only bring destruction. So here God's pouring out his wrath and bringing destruction. And the devil says, well, I can bring some destruction too. But the difference is that God can turn the blood back into water at the end of the seven days. God can make the frogs go away. He can make the flies go away. He can make the diseases go away. He can make the darkness go away. The devil can only bring more ill. He has power, but it's to work ill, not to work good. So it says here in verse number, oh, whoops, I'm on the wrong page. No wonder nothing's making sense. It says right here in verse number 22, and the magicians of Egypt did so with their enchantments, which it's kind of hard not to laugh when you read that. Like, wow, thanks. That's cool. Can we get something to drink? You know? Oh, hey, did they find the one water that's not blood? Because, I mean, think about it. Like, all the water's turned into blood. So these guys probably had to work hard to find some clean water. And then what do the idiots do? Instead of drinking it, they turn it into more blood. Just to prove a point, okay? So you see, the devil and his crowd are willing to destroy themselves and the people around them just to hate Christ more. Just in order to show their hatred for the Lord, just in order to defy the Lord, just in order to blaspheme the Lord, just in order to fight the Lord and fight against his prophet, they're willing to take this precious commodity they could have sold for any price or they could have drank it for their own health and it's like, we found some clean water. Here, we're going to turn it into blood just to make a point. That's the wickedness of the devil's crowd. The magicians of Egypt did so with their enchantments and Pharaoh's heart was hardened. Again, the implication there is that God is using the fact that the magicians can do these things as the actual reason for Pharaoh's hardening of his heart. Obviously, God wanted to harden Pharaoh's heart, but I think God is allowing the magicians to do these things in the sight of Pharaoh as the tool to harden Pharaoh's heart so that Pharaoh can look at this and say, oh, see, this is just magic. My guys can do the same thing. Of course, they can always do it on a smaller scale. It's never as good and it's only destructive. They can never do it the other way around. It says in verse 22 at the end there, Neither did he hearken unto them as the Lord had said. And Pharaoh turned and went into his house, neither did he set his heart to this also. I mean, this is still not getting through to him because his heart has been hardened. And all the Egyptians digged round about the river for water to drink, for they could not drink of the water of the river, and seven days were fulfilled after that the Lord had smitten the river. So the main takeaway from this chapter is that the Word of God has power. It doesn't matter who's saying it. It doesn't matter if a five-year-old speaks the Word of God to you. It doesn't matter if man, woman, boy, or girl quotes Scripture to you. That's God talking. That is God talking. That is not man talking, okay? So when someone quotes Scripture, that has authority. It doesn't matter who's saying it. It is authoritative what they have said because it's the Word of God. And we know all of the biblical authors have the same authority. It's not that, well, you know, parts of the Bible are a little more inspired than others. No, wrong. It's all God's Word, okay? And we need to understand the fact that all Scripture is the Word of God, okay? And other religions, they mix this up. Like, for example, the Catholics, they have what's called the Deuterocanonicals, okay? Now, we call this the apocrypha, which the very word apocrypha means that it's something that we don't believe in. It's something that is not considered Scripture. It's not the Word of God. It's not authoritative. It's false. And, you know, if you want to figure out that the apocrypha is false, look no further than Judith chapter 1, verse 1, where it says that Nebuchadnezzar is the king of Assyria, ruling from Nineveh, okay? Now, this is such a gross error because, of course, Nebuchadnezzar was the king of Babylon, ruling from Babylon. These are two totally different countries, okay? This would be like saying, hey, King James is the king of France, ruling from Paris. This would be like saying Donald Trump is the president of Mexico, and he's at the White House in Mexico City, okay? It's a totally different country, okay? And there's all kinds of foolishness in the apocryphal books. That's why they've been rejected by Bible-believing Christians all along, and people will sometimes pull this out, oh, it's in the King James version. It's in the King James in a separate section between the testaments, if you get the old 1611 edition, labeled at the top of every page apocrypha. And not only that, but if you actually look in the marginal notes on the side in that replica, if you just start in the very first book of the apocrypha that's listed there, you only have to go a few pages in where they have a note that says, oh, this place is corrupt. This is a corruption here. And then later, when they have introductions to some of the books, they make statements like, oh, well, this guy's clearly trying to copy Solomon. Okay, and basically just all the notes make it clear that it's not God's word. And if that doesn't convince you, all you have to do is look at the 39 articles of the Church of England that were enforced when the King James was published, and it specifically says, no doctrine shall be based on these 14 books, and it lists the 14 books of the apocrypha. These are not considered scripture, okay? So anybody who tries to tell you, well, the king, you know, the apocrypha used to be part of the Bible, and it used to be part of the King James, and people, they're just either ignorant of history or they're just lying to you, but that has only ever been regarded as scripture by the Roman Catholics, okay? And here's the thing about that. The Roman Catholics have to acknowledge that these books kind of suck a little bit, okay? So basically, they call them deuterocanonicals. So they don't want to admit, yeah, we have to reject these because they're garbage, okay? So they don't want to call them apocryphal, because look, do you know what the word apocryphal typically is used for? Literally, it means hidden, okay? But how it's usually used is, let's say someone tells a story about a famous person, you know, what Abraham, who was the one who cut down the cherry tree and told the truth about it? George Washington, right? Okay, so let's say someone didn't believe that story. They'd say, hey, that story is apocryphal. That is an apocryphal story about George Washington. That would mean that it didn't actually happen. Am I right? You know, or Marie Antoinette saying, let them eat cake is apocryphal, okay? It means that it didn't actually happen. So the Roman Catholics, why do they want to hang on to these books of the apocrypha? Because some of the books of the apocrypha support some of their weird doctrines. Some of their weird doctrines like purgatory and things like that. So they want to hang on to them because they like some of the doctrines of these books, but they have to admit that they're inferior to the rest of the Bible because anyone who reads them will see how grossly inferior they are. So that's why they call them deuterocanonicals, okay? Deutero meaning second, canon meaning which books are the official books of the lineup of scripture, right? So, well, these are kind of a B team to scripture. These are kind of the second string. You know, we've got our main 66 books. Then we've got, you know, the B team over here, the second string books that are a little bit less authoritative. But here's what you have to understand about the Catholics. They don't think any of the Bible is supremely authoritative because when you talk to the Catholic priest himself, he'll say, well, the Bible is written by man and he'll say that the Bible has mistakes in it and things. And then also, have you noticed how the Roman Catholics will rank the gospels above the epistles of Paul? And they'll kind of rank the four gospels as being more authoritative than the epistles of Paul. And so this is the way they think. Sometimes they'll demand you show them the red letters of Jesus talking or they won't believe it. Also, the Jews, if you take the way they do the Old Testament, they break the Old Testament into three parts. Now, our Old Testament is broken up in a very logical way because we have the law of Moses, we have the historical books, we have the poetic books, and then we have the prophets. So it's kind of broken by topic in that sense. And then it's chronological within the topic. Whereas the Jews break it up in a way that makes no sense except for this is how it makes sense to them. They have it in three sections, the first one being the most authoritative, the second one's a little bit less authoritative, and the third one is the least authoritative. And that's the way the Jews look at their Bible. So they will look at the Torah, the first five books, and they think it's more inspired or more authoritative or more right. Folks, that's garbage because it's either written by God or it's not. Either, look, and by the way, they've got the Book of Daniel in the third string. They put the Book of Daniel in the third category, the least inspired, the Jews do. Folks, did God say those things in the Book of Daniel or not? Daniel is some powerful stuff. I would venture to say that Daniel is probably one of most Christians' favorite Old Testament books. It would probably be in most Christians' top five Old Testament books. If we were to say, hey, write down your five favorite Old Testament books, most people would put Daniel in there. Did God say those things or not? Did these stories really happen or not? How is it less authoritative? It's not. But you see how false religion, how they carve up the Bible and say, well, this part is more, no, wrong. The Book of Romans is every bit as authoritative as the Gospel of Mark, right? And the Book of Revelation is as authoritative as the Gospel of John because all of it is the Word of God. It's all working together. It's all given by inspiration of God. All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine. So we don't need a deuterocanon, right? We don't need something to be demoted and say, well, this is kind of scripture, wrong. It's either God's Word or it isn't, okay? And so what we learn from this chapter is that the Word of God is powerful. It's authoritative. It doesn't matter whose mouth it's coming out of. It doesn't matter whether Moses is saying it or Aaron is saying it. Whoever's saying it, it's God's Word. And he said, look, I've made you a god to Aaron because he's speaking God's Word to Aaron, okay? And then we see, of course, that some people's hearts are hardened and they're just never gonna believe it. They're not gonna listen to it no matter what. So we need to make sure that we listen to God's Word. If you're not saved, obviously, you need to get saved before it's too late. Say, oh, you mean if I die? Sometimes it can even become too late even before you die. So you better get saved now as they accept the time. Now is the day of salvation, okay? But then to those of us who are saved, we wanna make sure that we continue to listen to what God has to say in our lives, obey the Word of God so that we can be blessed by God because I don't just wanna only go to heaven. I also wanna enjoy the time leading up to that, right? I don't want God to curse me. I want God to bless me. And I wanna enjoy my time in heaven with greater rewards. And I don't want to just waste my life. Well, I'm going to heaven, so I might as well waste it. No, I'd rather use the time, redeem the time on this earth to do great works for God and be rewarded and be blessed and so forth. So we need to listen to what God is saying. We need to listen to the man of God. We need to listen to the preaching, listen to anyone in our life who is speaking God's Word to us, whether it's our parents, brothers and sisters in Christ, the pastor, whatever, that we listen to God's Word so that we don't face judgment for neglecting to hear what God tells us. Let's bow your heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for this great chapter, Lord, and we just pray that you would just let it sink down into our ears and help us to understand these things. We're living in the last days, Lord, and there's so much bad doctrine out there. Help us to grasp these things and understand the reprobate doctrine and understand the doctrines of the Bible and the 39 books of the Old Testament, the 27 books of the New Testament. Help us to understand why it's so important that every word of God is pure, that it's preserved, that it's inspired, Lord. Help us to stand on these truths all the way until the end, and in Jesus' name we pray, amen.