The Plague of Locusts

Together. Father, we thank you so much that one day at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. We pray that everyone in this room today will have or would have already bowed in submission to your Lordship. If not, that what they hear today through your word would cause them to come in humility and bow before you and recognize you as king, as Lord. As Savior. In Jesus' precious name we pray. Amen. Okay, if you got your Bible.

Back to the book of Exodus, the 10th chapter. Exodus chapter 10. We are flying through this book at warp spe. And so Exodus chapter 10, plague number eight, the plague of the locusts. I'm going to begin reading in verse number 1. Then the Lord said to Moses, Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart, and the heart of his servants, that I may perform these signs of mine among them. And that you may tell in the hearing of your son and of your grandson how I made a mockery of the Egyptians and how I performed my signs among them, that you may know that I am the Lord.

And Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said to him, Thus says the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? Let my people go, that they may serve me. For if you refuse to let my people go, behold, tomorrow I will bring locusts into your territory, and they shall cover the surface of the land, so that no one shall be able to see the land. They shall also eat the rest of what has escaped, what is left to you from the hail. And they shall eat every tree which sprouts for you out of the field.

Then your houses shall be filled, and the houses of all your servants, and the houses of all the Egyptians, something which neither your fathers nor your grandfathers have seen. from the day that they came upon the earth until this day. And he turned and went out from Pharaoh. And Pharaoh's servant said to him, How long will this man be a snare to us? Let the men go, that they may serve the Lord their God. Do you not realize that Egypt is destroyed? So Moses and Aaron were brought back to Pharaoh, and he said to them, Go, serve the Lord your God.

Who are the ones that are going? And Moses said, We shall go with our young and our old, with our sons and our daughters, with our flocks and our herds we will go, for we must hold a feast. To the Lord. Then he said to them, Thus may the Lord be with you, if ever I let you and your little ones go. Take heed. For evil is in your mind. Not so. Go now, the men among you, and serve the Lord, for that is what you desire. So they were driven out from Pharaoh's presence. Then the LORD said to Moses, Stretch out your hand over the land of Egypt for the locusts, that they may come up on the land of Egypt and eat every plant of the land, even all that the hail is left.

So Moses stretched out his staff over the land of Egypt, and the LORD directed an east wind on the land, all that day and all that night. And when it was morning, the east wind brought the locust. And the locusts came up over all the land of Egypt and settled in all the territory of Egypt. They were very numerous. There had never been so many locusts, nor would there be so many again. For they covered the surface of the whole land. So that the land was darkened, and they ate every plant of the land, and all the fruit of the trees that the hail had left.

Thus nothing green was left on tree or plant of the field through all the land of Egypt. Then Pharaoh hurriedly called for Moses and Aaron, and said, I have sinned against the Lord your God, and against you. Now therefore please forgive my sin only this once, and make supplication to the Lord your God, that he would only remove this death from me. And he went out from Pharaoh and made supplication to the LORD. So the LORD shifted the wind to a very strong west wind, which took up the locusts and drove them into the Red Sea.

Not one locust was left in all the territory of Egypt. But the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart. And he did not let the sons of Israel go. Six things I want to cover with you this morning. The first is the duty in The plague, the duty in the plague.

It's in verse number one. The Lord said to Moses, Go to Phar, for I have hardened. His heart. God tells Moses, You have a responsibility, you have a duty that you need to fulfill. You need to go to Moses, I mean, go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart. And you give him the message. Now, the duty behind that is very important. Because you see, Moses was never guaranteed a preaching success. He was never guaranteed that if he kept preaching and telling Pharaoh the truth, that Pharaoh's heart would soften and he would repent and get right with God and great things would happen.

On the contrary. But yet he would continue to fulfill his duty before the Lord. Now that's very important, right? Because Moses knew there would be no success in preaching to Moses, to Pharaoh, excuse me, but God said, Moses, you keep going. Now you think about that in your life, in my life. And the duty God's called us to perform, and how long that we've been doing the same thing and have seen no results. For the most part, we just want to quit. God told Moses: Listen, I've hardened Pharaoh's heart.

He's not going to repent. And Moses could have said, well, if that's the case, let's just get to plague number 10. Let's skip all the other plagues. Why waste our time? Why waste our energy? Why waste my voice? Why waste the message? Just get to the bottom line, Lord. Get it over with. But Moses didn't do that. Moses just kept fulfilling his duty before the Lord God of the universe. That's our responsibility, isn't it? Our responsibility is to do what God says, even though we might not see a result to our liking.

Let me give you a couple illustrations. God says that we are to preach the word in season and out of season.

Reprove, rebuke, exhort with all on suffering and patience. 2 Timothy 4, verse number 2. Just keep preaching the word. Our responsibility is to fulfill our duty. Our responsibility is to lead the results with God. Let him do what he's going to do. But we can't quit. We can't stop. We must be faithful stewards of the ministry God's given to us. On Wednesday night, we talked about preparing for end times, how we need to look expectantly for the Lord's return. How we need to think biblically and pray intelligently.

How we need to love fervently. How we need to make sure that we show hospitality and minister supernaturally. To do all those things until Jesus Christ returns. But sometimes in our ministry, we want to quit because we don't think that things are going as we plan them to go. Think of Moses. Every time he preached, things just got worse. They didn't get any better. But he kept preaching because God said so. He fulfilled his duty before the Lord God of the universe. That's our responsibility, isn't it?

We're to love fervently, even though people we love never return that love. Even though we love, and people who are being loved by us never make us feel loved by them. We still are to love with all that we have because God said so. We are to pray. We know that God's in control of everything. We know that God's will is going to be done. But God says we are to pray.

I can't let my theology about the sovereignty of God ruin my prayer life. Because God said, pray. And how my prayers work in conjunction with the sovereignty of God, I have no idea, but that's not my responsibility. I'm supposed to pray because God said pray. So, what do I do? I pray. I pray that the right man gets in office on November 2nd. And what God does, God's going to do. But I still have to be responsible, don't I? God says we need to discipline our children.

Right? So we discipline our children and we don't see any results. You know, as a parent, you know, I've come to realize that parenting is a 24-7 kind of thing, isn't it? You just can't parent for an hour a day. You can't parent for eight hours a day. I wish it was that easy. I mean, it's an all-day affair. You wake up, you got to parent. You go to school, you got a parent. They come home, you got a parent. They go to bed, you got a parent. They wake up in the middle of the night, you got a parent.

You always got to be on duty. You can never go off duty as a parent. You can't put a sign off duty, off closed, on your bedroom door, as much as I like to do that every once in a while. I'm sorry. Dad's not in the office today. I'm taking a break. It doesn't work that way. Right? And we get tired as parents. And you know, you got to stay on top of your children. And for the most part, parents get tired of disciplin because it's a non-stop kind of thing. And we begin to let this go, then we let that go, then we let this go, then we let that go.

And next thing you know, Everything goes to pot because we're just too tired. Too much work. But God says to discipline your children.

Hebrews 12 speaks of it. The book of Proverbs speaks of it. It's a demanding duty. But you can't quit because you're tired. Can't quit because you don't want to do it that day. Why? Because God says, these are gifts.

I've only given them to you for a short while. A short while. Therefore, you need to make sure that you train them and raise them properly. Because one day they're going to be gone. Just that quick. For me, I wish it was a little quicker, but you know, it's just that quick. You know, one day they're all going to be gone. You know? And so you need to work with them. And I would be the first to let you know that my wife has much more patience than I do in working with our children.

I have very little patience for just about anything. You know, let alone working with my children, you know, trying to put my son's Lego project together yesterday or the day before yesterday. Took me six hours to put a Lego project together. Six hours all day Friday. You know? It was a mind-boggling experience for me as a father. And then when it broke yesterday. I wasn't about to spend any more time working on that project. I'm done. I washed my hands of the Lego project. You know? Poor Cade, man, he was frustrated.

Come on, Dad, help me out here. I'm done, man. I'm done. So he went to bed. We went to bed. I had to go back and put it all back together again. Took me another hour. You know? But, you know, it's just simple things. But God's called us to be responsible. And you know, we don't have the luxury of knowing the end result. Moses did. We don't have that. And so we still have to be responsible to the duty God's called us to, right? The next thing you see is really interesting. It's the design in the plague.

And this is just a constant reminder of what God has said all along. And I thought about this. I thought, you, I'll just skip over this. This is no big deal. We've already covered this. But.

But the reason God keeps repeating it and the reason Moses keeps writing it down is because we need to be reminded of it, right? Repetition is the mother of learning. That's very important. And God knows that. And so God just keeps saying the same thing. In fact, all 66 books are the same thing said over and over and over and over again, just from a different perspective. Because the whole Bible points to one thing, and that is the revelation of Jesus Christ our Lord, and who He is and what He did and why He did it.

And it's just a constant reminder to us that this needs to be told over and over again. This was the design of the plague. Listen, he says. I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants that I may perform these signs of mine among them. God says, Here's my design.

I'm going to do these things because they need to know the power of Almighty God. They didn't know. And how are they going to know? Unfortunately for them, it was through disaster, right? It was through these plagues. Which helps me understand some things about how my God works. Our God is concerned that people know him and understand him, right? So God will spare no expense to get people's attention, even if it's through disaster, heartache, and turmoil. Because they need to know that he's the all-powerful one.

And throughout all these plagues, we've seen that our Lord is the Lord of the land. He's Lord of the livestock. He's Lord of the locust. He's Lord of the lice. He's Lord of the life. He is Lord of everything because that's who He is. And so he's going to demonstrate his power in all these different ways to show that the gods of the Egyptians mean absolutely nothing. That he means everything. And the only way for him to do that is to destroy what they believe is important and to destroy what they believe is valuable.

So he destroys it all. Because he's powerful. And he wants them to understand this. And this is this: listen to this. He says, And that you may tell in the hearing of your son and of your grandson how I made a mockery of the Egyptians and how I performed my signs. Among them. Do you want to know why I'm doing these dis? So you So, you can tell your children about me. Now, remember what I told you during our announcement time? The importance of understanding what God is doing. God wants us, listen.

To teach our children about him through the tragedies of life. I want you to tell your sons, your grandsons, how I made a mockery of the Egyptians, how I destroyed their gods, because they mean nothing to me, and they should mean nothing to you. How I performed all these signs. I want you to be able to tell your children and your children's children. It tells me of the responsibility of the parent to tell the children about God. It's not the Sunday school's responsibility to tell them. It's not the Christian school's responsibility to tell them.

Never in the Bible does the Bible give someone else outside the parent the responsibility of training a child. It's a parent's responsibility. That doesn't mean the church doesn't train the child because the church is supposed to do that, right? We preach to every man, Colossians 1, 28 and 29. Every person that comes, we teach from the smallest to the oldest. Or from the youngest to the oldest, from the smallest to the biggest. We teach them all. But the responsibility is on the parent. To teach them.

Now, think about this. God would reiterate this over and over in the book of Exodus. Listen to Exodus chapter 12, verse number. 26. And it shall come about when your children will say to you, What does this rite mean to you? And you shall say, It is a Passover sacrifice to the Lord. Who passed over the houses of the sons of Israel in Egypt when he smote the Egyptians, but spared our homes, and the people bowed low and worship. There 's gonna come a time. Well, your children are going to ask you about this Passover thing, and you got to tell them.

You got to tell them what I did. Look at chapter 13, verse number 8. And you shall tell your son on that day, saying, It is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt. Verse number 14, and it shall be when your son asks you in time to come, saying, What is this? Then you shall say to him, With a powerful hand, the Lord brought us out of Egypt and the house of slavery. Speaking specifically about the consecration of the firstborn. Why is it we take the firstborn son and consecrate the firstborn?

Why is that so important, Dad? Why do we do that? And now you've got an opportunity to tell them. How? The death angel passed over the firstborn son because we believed in what God said and we followed him completely. That's important, isn't it? Now here comes the clincher. The key is God says when you do this, your kids will ask you.

If your kids aren't asking you, it's because you're not doing it. You're not showing it to them, right? A good study for you is to go through the first things in the Bible: the firstborn, the first fruits.

All those things. Because God looks at the first fruits, the firstborn, the first things as the preeminent things.

And if we are willing to take the first thing and consecrate it to God, it symbolizes our willingness to consecrate everything to God.

That's why the Bible says, honor the Lord with the first fruits of your increase, right? When you get your paycheck, right at the top, you honor the Lord with the first fruits of your increase.

Why? Because it demonstrates that all those increases are from God. But you're going to consecrate the first part to show that God takes the preeminent place when it comes to your money.

That's why you do it. And so, whenever we do that, we are demonstrating to our children. And they begin to ask questions: well, why do we do that? Why do we partake of the Lord's table? Why isn't we go to church? Why isn't we go to church every week? Why is it we go twice a week? Why do we do this, mom and dad? And now you sit down and you tell them and you explain it to them. That's so important. Look over in Deuteronomy chapter 6. Excuse me, Deuteronomy chapter 4, verse number 9. Only give heed to yourself and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things which your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart.

All the days of your life, but make them known to your sons and your grandsons. He says, You got to keep your soul diligent. It's a even word, it means to sharpen. You've got to sharpen your soul. How do you sharpen your soul? You keep teaching your sons. You keep teaching your grandsons about the mighty works of God. It keeps you sharp, it keeps you on your toes. It gives you a heads up. It keeps you in the forefront. It keeps you moving on toward Christ-likeness. Sharpen your soul. Teach your kids.

Teach your grandkids that they might know the works of God. Over in Deuteronomy chapter 6, what's it say? Verse number 7, and you shall teach them diligently to your sons, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. First number 20.

When your son asks you in time to come, saying, What do the testimonies and the statutes and the judges mean which the LORD our God commanded you? Then you shall say to your son, We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt And the Lord brought us from Egypt with a mighty hand. Moreover, the Lord showed great and distressing signs and wonders before our eyes against Egypt. Pharaoh and all his household, and he brought us out from there in order to bring us in, to give us the land which he had sworn to our fathers.

Why is it you obey the statutes of God? Why is it, Dad, you follow the law of God? Why is it, Dad, that the Bible is the most important thing in your life? Why? Because there was a time I didn't know the Lord. There was a time I did that which was right in my own eyes. And God saved my soul. And because He saved me soul, He made me whole. And because he made me whole, I want to honor him with all that I have. And so I give my life to him. I follow his word. And I never want to compromise his word.

See that? Now, if your kids aren't asking that question, it's probably because you're not obeying the word of the Lord. It's probably because you're not honoring the word of the Lord. They don't know what you're doing and why you're doing it. So they have no reason to ask you. The question is: how many times do your kids ask you about why you do things for God? Only you can answer that question, right? If you're doing things for God, they're going to ask you. If you not doing things for God, they're not going to ask you.

And God says, look, this is what it's about. You've got to teach your kids. That's why we say, you know, you've got to come next Sunday, next Wednesday, next Friday, next Sunday. Why? Because God's got to be able to help you understand where we've been and where we are today and where we're going tomorrow. You've got to be able to tell Him. You got to be able to show them. And in this context, in Exodus chapter 10, it's all about the tragedies of life. You know, tragedies come as a great teaching tool for our children.

We've got to be able to explain it to them. Ten years ago, when my wife and I resigned from our previous church, we went up on stage, and the church was packed that night. I'll never forget it. It was packed with all kinds of people because they had to bring them in to vote against us. Or me as their pastor, and they gurney, they had people in gurneys, they had people in wheelchairs, they had people in all these breathing masks and all these All these IVs hooked into them, they wheeled them in, tons of them in the back.

Never seen them before in my entire life, but they were charter members of the church. They'd been around for 100 years, and so they had to bring them in to vote against us. And the church was packed. And so my wife and I knew we had to resign, so we walked up on stage together, and my wife was like, you know, forever pregnant, way out here. You know what I'm saying? And so I walked, she waddled up on stage. And we got up there. I held her hand and I said these words, I'll never forget them. I, You know, I want to thank you as your pastor for the most wonderful 14 months of ministry I could ever experience.

And I want to thank you that I could be here and be your pastor. But the Lord has made it very clear to Lori and me that it's time for us to leave. And so we're going to resign effective this evening. So, would you please all stand with me? And we're going to sing the doxology and give praise to God. They all stood. We sang. My wife and I walked out the door, got in our black miniv, turned the key on, drove home. And Lori says, Well, what are we going to do now? And I said, I don't know. But I know I'm going to Delaware tomorrow because my mom's having an operation and I'm going to go see her.

And when I get back, we'll talk about it. But I didn't know what we were going to do. Didn have a paycheck. Didn't have any insurance now.

We had nothing. Nothing. Except. You got it. God. Jesus. Had to wait for Him to work. Had to wait for Him to orchestrate what was going to take place. We didn't know anything about this church. We didn't know anything about what was going to happen. We knew nothing. We weren't going to compromise the Word of God. We were going to stand strong on the Word of God. And we were going to let God take care of what needed to happen. So, when this church began and great things began to take place, we found ourselves in a predicament about Having to move because the previous church that we were sharing a facility with said, You guys got to move.

You got to leave. You've outgrown the facility. Overgrowing us, and we want you out of here. And this is the date you got to leave. So we said, Great, we'll leave. We looked and looked and looked and looked and couldn't find a place. And it was Wednesday night before we had to be in another church the next Sunday. We said, folks, we don't know where we're going yet. We don't have the foggiest idea where we're going to be on Sunday, so make sure we have your phone number and your name, and we'll call you on Saturday night to let you know where our service will be on Sunday because we don't know.

And it wasn't until that Friday that the Lord opened a church, a First Baptist church over here in West Covina, opened the door for us that Friday for us to have services there.

We went back, we called everybody that was on the list, told them where church was the next Sunday. So they could be there. We don't know where we're going to go. We don know where we're going. We going to trust the Lord, see? Now, see, those are the things your children need to know. They got to understand because one day they're going to be without. Finances. They're going to be without cars. They're going be without things. They're going to need things. What are they going to do? They got to trust the Lord.

They got to wait for God to work. They got to w For God to open the doors. You see, God puts you in situations so you learn to trust Him. Why? So that one day you can teach your children to trust him. That they can understand what it means to follow God, honor God, and live for God. And that's what's so exciting about following the Lord Jesus Christ. There's never a dull moment as a Christian. If you're bored as a Christian, something's wrong. Drastically wrong with your life. Because Christianity is exciting and adventure.

Remember what Corey Tan Bloom said? Faith is that fantastic adventure in trusting Him. That's faith. And we're in an adventure. Of trusting our God moment by moment. And that's an exciting thing, isn it? And God says to.

To Moses, you got to teach your sons and your grandsons. They got to know that tragedy is designed, listen, by me, God said. I got a plan. A guy came to my office yesterday. I'm sorry, not yesterday, Wednesday. He's moving. He's moving. He left Friday. I said, I just want to let you know that I've had such a great time being at this church. You know, the Lord opened the door for me to have another job up north, and I got to move. He said but I want to give you a t-shirt. I said, all right. I had this t-shirt made.

During the 9-11 tragedy in New York, I wear it all the time, and I wanted to make one for you. So on the back, it's got this American flag. It's got 9-11. It's got this phrase. If you know the who, you know the why. She said, remember when you said that? I said, yeah, I remember that. She says, I never forgot it. I never forgot it. If you know who's in charge. You never have to ask why. Because you know, God's got it all under control. God's doing everything He's going to do. He's in charge. There's never a time he's not in charge.

There's never a time he's caught by surprise. He knows everything. Because he, as Isaiah 4:7 says, is the author of calamity. That 's our God. And God says, I want you and the Egyptians to know of my power.

And the only way I'm going to get across to them is to destroy their land. destroy their livestock, destroy their crops, destroy their homes, so they know that I am the powerful God of the universe. See that? We only got through a couple of verses. We better hurry up, man. We're not going to finish this thing. Okay, where were we? Okay, point number three.

Oh, I've only got four more to go. Okay, point number three: the Declaration and the Plague. Man, I got a lot of things to say this morning. The Declaration and the Plague. He says, Listen.

You go and you tell Pharaoh, How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? Let my people go that they may serve me. That's the seventh time. How do I know that? I've counted them all. It's the seventh time that Moses has said that to Pharaoh. Let my people go, that they may serve me. Now, why does God keep saying that in there? Because the same thing applies to you and me, right? Why does God free us from bondage? One reason, one reason only, that we might serve Him. Right? Live no longer.

To sin, but to righteousness, to honor him and to glorify his name. That's what it's about. And so Moses goes with the same declaration. He says, you know, how long will you refuse to humble yourself before God? Why do you continue on in your arrogant way? Why do you do that, Pharaoh? You are an arrogant man. You are a prideful man. And Moses, he goes with the authority of the Lord, right? Titus 2:15. These things. Speak with all authority. Why? And he says to Titus, don't let anyone disregard you.

If you're speaking the words of God, you speak with authority, right? And Moses spoke with great authority. So he would come with this declaration and say, Your arrogance is killing you, Pharaoh. You've got to let God's people go. Because if you don't, here it goes again. Tomorrow, tomorrow, this is what's going to take place. See, that's the grace of God, isn't it? God gave him another warning, another opportunity to repent. He gave him a full warning. Tomorrow, this is what's going to happen. And you've got to be ready for it, Pharaoh.

But you can escape it all if you let God's people go. But Pharaoh didn't. Which leads me to the fourth point, and that's the defending in the plague. Moses and Aaron receive a couple of allies, and they're the bad guys. It says Verse 7, and Pharaoh's servant said to him, How long will this man be a snare to us? Do you not realize that Egypt is destroyed? Hey, Pharaoh. Let's give you a little bit of a hint here. The longer Moses is around, the worse it's going to get. So get him out of here. Don't you see don't you realize, Pharaoh, that your land, your kingdom is Destroyed now.

Pharaoh didn't care because he was stubborn, he was hard-hearted, he was stiff-necked, and he didn't care. But these servants would come to him and say, You got to realize that what Moses is saying is tr. You got to let him go. You got to do what he says. Would it be that there'd be people in the church that way, right? If you know somebody living in sin and you go to them after the service is over, say, you what? Did you hear what the pastor said today? You got to make sure you get it right, man.

You've got to make sure you live for the Lord. Would it be that there'd be more people in the church, like the servants of Pharaoh, who would not be afraid to rebuke those, even in leadership, that they might understand the warnings of Almighty God, right? Sure. But you need to notice something.

What the servant said, and then what Pharaoh said to Moses and Aaron when he called them back in. Listen to what they said. Middle part of verse number 7. I didn't read this earlier. Let the men go that they may serve the Lord their God. Let the men go. Now, verse 8. So Moses and Aaron were brought back to Pharaoh, and he said to them, Go serve the Lord your God. Oh, by the way, who are the ones who are going? Who's going to go? Now, Moses made it very clear. Let my people go. That's all God's people.

So, Pharaoh comes back, and now he's going to try to get Moses to compromise once again. We've already looked at how he's tried to get him to compromise before. He's going to try to get him to compromise again. By the way, Moses. Who is it that's actually going to go on this little wilderness journey to worship the Lord? And of course, Moses says these words. We shall go with our young and our old, and with our sons and our daughters, with our flock and our herds. We will go, for we must hold a feast to the Lord.

He says, We're taking everybody. We're taking the old ones, the young ones, everybody who's the people of God. Verse 10. Then he said to them, Thus may the Lord be with you. If ever I let you and your little ones go, take heed, for evil is in your mind. He says sarcastically. Let the Lord be with you. If by chance you think I'm going to let all these little ones go, I'm not going to do that. Why? Because you see, Moses, you have evil on your mind. You can't take those little ones into the wilderness.

They'll die. They can't hidden that. Look at Pharaoh's playing the righteous guy here. He's playing the care card. See? You can't let those little ones go. You can't let those elderly people go. Just let the men go. You leave the women behind. You leave the children behind because it's too rough out there. It's too rugged out there. They can't handle. What's going on out there, Moses? Now, isn't that interesting? Because we will see who the ones that couldn't handle it out there. It wasn't the children.

It was everybody over 20 years of age. They were the ones who griped and groaned and moaned and complained the whole time. They were the ones who ended up dying in the wilderness because they couldn't handle it. It wasn't the fact that the children couldn't handle it, the children could. It was the adults who couldn't handle it. But Pharaoh wanted minimize those who would worship God. Leave the children behind. If they left the children behind, who would teach the children? Who would watch the children?

The parents have responsibility for these children. They'll leave their kids behind. They're going to take them with them because they understood their responsibility to train their children, to teach their children. To nurture their children. They were the gifts that God had given to them. They weren the gifts that God had given to Pharaoh. They had responsibility, didn't they? But Pharaoh tried to get Moses to compromise the truth. It didn't happen. So, let me move to you to the destruction of the plague in verses 14 and 15.

For they covered the surface of the whole land, and the land was darkened, and they ate every plant of the land, and all the fruit of the trees, and all the hail had left. Thus nothing green was left on tree or plant but the field through all the land of Egypt. That's the destruction of the plague. Just like God said, the place became black, the ground became black, locusts everywhere. They ate everything, they destroyed the land, everything. Which leads us to the deceit and the play to the last point.

Pharaoh, not heeding the words of his servants, again Realizing that his land was being destroyed again, it says in verse number 16, hurriedly called from Moses and Aaron and said, I have sinned against the Lord and against you. Impressive, but insincere. Insincere. For he says, Now therefore, please forgive my sin only this once. Just this one time. Forgive my sin. You see, he wanted relief from the plague again. He wanted to be out from under the consequences of a sin. He didn't want to suffer the consequences any longer.

It wasn't because he truly wanted to know the living God of the universe. It wasn because he truly wanted to let the people go. Because we know at the end of the chapter, it says, What? He hardened his heart and would not let the nation of Israel go. Go. It's the deceit in Pharaoh once again. I've sinned. Please pray. So, what did Moses do? He prayed. And God changed the wind. And isn't it interesting that all the locusts were driven into what sea? The Red Sea. As a sign of things to come for Pharaoh and his army, that they would all die in the Red Sea.

But look what it says in verse number 20. But the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he did not let the sons of Israel go. But the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart. Say, well, you know, that just kind of seems out of character. That God would harden Pharaoh's heart and that he wouldn't let the nation of Israel go, go. But not true, not not true at all. Because the bottom line is this: that if you persist in evil, God will make your pursuit of evil a permanent pursuit. And that's what God did for Pharaoh.

He continued to pursue evil. He continued to pursue things away from God. No matter how many times God warned him. And so it got to the point where God says, Okay, I'm going to confirm you in your pursuit.

Just keep pursuing evil. Go right ahead. Just keep doing it. And that's the hardeness. Of the heart, and that's where Pharaoh is doomed now.

There's going to be another locust plague. Unlike the one in Exodus 10. It's in Revelation chapter 9. So if you give me three minutes, I'll try to cover that for you. Turn with me to Revelation chapter 9.

I need to give this to you because you need to understand it. The fifth trumpet's going to blow. Now, if you've been with us, you understand the scenario. There are seven seals, seven trumpets, seven bowls. The seven trumpets come forth as a result of the breaking of the seventh seal. And the seven bull are poured as a result of the seventh trumpet that blows. But this is the fifth trumpet, meaning to say that four have already passed. And it says in verse number 13, and I looked and I heard, verse 13 of chapter 8, and I looked and I heard an eagle flying in mid-heaven, saying with a loud voice.

Woe, woe, woe to those who dwell on the earth, because of the remaining blasts of the trumpet of the three angels who are about to sound. So there's got to be a fifth trumpet, there's got to be a sixth trumpet, and then when the seventh trumpet blows, the seven bowls pour out of the seventh trumpet, and the end comes, and Jesus Christ returns. Okay? So the eagle says, Whoa, whoa, whoa, cursed be the earth. If you think everything else that happened up to this time was bad, you ain't seen nothing yet.

It's going to be really bad. So you come to chapter 9, verse number 1. This is what it says. And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star from heaven, which had fallen to the earth, and the key of the bottomless pit was given to him. For lack of time, I won't go into great detail. All I have to say is that there was a star that had fallen. That star, of course, was Satan himself. And his name, of course, according to verse number 11, is Abaddon and Apoll. That 's his name. There was a key. Given to this star, this angel.

Now, John has seen many stars fall, all celestial stars fall from the sky. Revelation 6, Revelation 8, he's seen them happen. But this star is different. It's different. This star is an angelic being. This star, according to verse 11, is the king over the demonic forces. Who's that? Well, that's Satan. That's who that is. Key was given to him in the bottomless pit. He opened the bottomless pit, and smoke went up out of the pit like the smoke of a great furnace. And the sun and the air were darkened by the smoke of the pit.

And out of the smoke came forth what? Loc. Locusts, here they come again. But these locusts are different than the locusts in Exodus chapter 10. And out of the smoke came forth locusts upon the earth. And listen, power was given to them. There is a purpose behind Satan receiving a key to the bottomless pit. See, people think that Satan is the king of hell. He's not. He's the chief resident of hell, or will be. He is not the king of hell. You want to know why? Because locusts, according to Proverbs 30, have no king.

Did you know that? Loc have no king. They all know how to file out, though, in rank. There's no general in the locust world. Did you know that? There's nobody saying to one locust, to the next locust, hey, you go here, you go there, you go here, you go there. They just all do the same thing, and they all fall in rank, they all know what they're doing. That's the way it works. Proverbs, if you're looking for that verse, that's Proverbs chapter 30, verse number 27. But these locusts, they come up out of the pit.

Power was given to them. Who gave them the power? Who? God did. God did. Who holds the keys to death in Hades? Christ, Revel 1:18, right? So the key now is given to Satan. He opens the bottomless pit where there are demons that have been reserved for the day of judgment, some of them permanently reserved, others of them temporarily reserved. And those ones temporarily reserved are set free now to roam the earth. To roam the earth. And John sees them come forth as locusts. The power is given to them as the scorpions of the earth have power.

And they were told. Their arrival not only was powerful, it was purposeful. It was purposeful. They were told. That they should not hurt the grass of the earth, nor any green thing, nor any tree, but only the men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. And they were not permitted to kill anyone, but to torment for five months. The arrival of these locusts is powerful, purposeful, and painful. They're not allowed to kill anybody. They could only torment men, and they could only do it for a certain amount of time, five months.

Now, listen to this. And their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it stings a man. And in those days, Men will seek death and will not find it, and they will long to die, and death flees from them. In those days, man is going to take the gun, put it to his head, and the bullet will bounce off his brain. He won't die. He'll take the knife, he'll thrust it into his body, but it will, the blade will break, it will not kill him, he will not die because the one who holds the keys To death in Hades.

The Bible says Hebrews 9:2, it is appointed that a man who wants to die after that, the judgment. God 's in charge of who lives and who dies. And God says, for these five months, you can't die.

And they're going to want to die. And they can't. Can you imagine wanting to die so bad, you will do all you can? You'll go and you'll run, you'll jump off the cliff, and what? You'll fly. And you'll land safely. You'll take your plane, you'll try to drive it to the mountain, and it'll just land on the mountain. You'll be in so much pain, you'll want to die, but you can't die. Because God's not going to let you die. Because He's in charge, right? He's in charge. And the appearance of the locusts was like horses prepared for battle, and on their heads, as it were, crowns like gold, crown stephan, meaning the victor's wreath.

That means they're going to accomplish their duty. They're going to win for those five months. And their faces were like faces of men, signifying their intelligence. And they had hair like the hair of a woman. What's significant about that? The beauty and the glory of the woman is what? Her hair. Maybe it signifies their ability to seduce man, to get them to come to them that they might sting them and torment them for five months. And their teeth are like the teeth of a lion to rip and to tear. And they had breastplates like breastplates of iron to protect their vital organs, speaking of their invincibility.

In the second. And the sound of their wings was like the sound of chariots of many horses rushing to battle, and they have tails like scorpions and stings, and in their tails is their power to hurt men for Five months. Again, five months is used. God is clarifying. This is how long it's going to happen. They're going to be like a herd of horses and the rumble of them coming. You're going to hear them coming, you're going to see them coming, and you can't escape them. Can 't. It says in verse number 12: the first woe is past.

Behold, two woes are still coming after these things. But listen to this. Verse 20 of chapter 9 and the rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues Because when the next trumpet blows, there are those who are killed, did not repent of the works of their hands. So as not to worship demons, and the idols of gold, and of silver, and of brass, and of stone, and of wood, which could neither see, nor hear, nor walk, and they did not repent of their murderers. nor of their sorceries, nor of their immorality, nor of their thefts.

Why do I read that to you? Because God is going to confirm man in his pursuit of evil. He will not repent. As Pharaoh didn't in Exodus 10, neither will those enemies of the Lord Jesus Christ during the days of the tribulation. They will want to die, but God's not going to let them die. And then, when some are able to die, those who are alive and remain don't get it. They don't understand. And they do not repent of their murders. They do not repent of their sorceries. They do not repent of their idolatry.

They do not repent of their immorality. They just keep living in sin and wickedness because man loves darkness. Rather than light, because his deeds are evil. I share that with you because if you're here today, never giving your life to Christ, you need to do so today. Don't wait till tomorrow. You had no guarantee of tomorrow. Pharaoh had a guarantee that tomorrow the plague would come. His repentance was a farce. It wasn't true. Because he did not want to do what God said. How do you know your repentance is true?

Because you want to do what God says, right? That's right. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this day and the truth of your word that is so phenomenal. I pray, Lord, that as we understand what is happening in the Word of the Lord. What took place in Exodus 10, what will take place in Revelation 9? May it move us to be preachers of the truth, to warn men of impending judgment. They might know that Jesus is Savior of the world. In Jesus' name, amen.