COME AS A CHILD - LESSON 124 - LOCUSTS AND HEAVY DARKNESS

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

I wonder what was going through the mind of Moses in the middle of all the plagues of Egypt?  Of course he would have been realizing how powerful his God is, and I'm sure he would have been thankful for the fact that God was not punishing the Israelites along with the Egyptians.  Do you think he ever wondered how long and how many plagues he was going to have to predict to Pharaoh?

As we have studied Moses in the act of helping God deliver Egypt, we have seen the river turn to blood.  We have seen frogs and gnats and flies.  We have seen the people have to deal with boils.  We have seen the death of livestock and hail.  All of these plagues have come upon Egypt because of Pharaoh’s hard heart.  

A funny thing is happening now though; God keeps telling Moses that He is the One who has been hardening the heart of Pharaoh and his officials! God doesn't say this every time; but many of the times He does.  Why would God harden someone’s heart?  Would that not be taking away their free will?  We are told that God gives us free will and lets us make our own choices.  Seems very strange for God to be doing this.  

In the beginning of Chapter ten of Exodus God explains His actions.  He is doing all of this for a reason!  It is so that He may perform his signs among the Egyptians and right in front of the Israelites so that Moses can see and tell his children and grandchildren how God dealt harshly with the Egyptians and how God performed signs among them!  It was so Moses and his children and grandchildren and all of the people of Israel might KNOW that God was God, and the ONE TRUE GOD was teaching His people the first commandment – "Thou Shalt Have No Other God’s Before Me."  Moses and Aaron were the two witnesses who could claim that they were actually there on the scene when God showed Egypt his power and might and sovereignty.

Even way back before God formally called Israel out and gave them the ten commandments, He was beginning to teach the people the best way to live.  The beginning of knowing the best way to live is to know, believe and recognize that God is above all and over all.  It was VERY important for God to get His people to see and understand that He did not want them worshiping pagan gods and He did not want them to put any other gods before Him.  God was calling out a people to be His own special nation, a nation set  to bring the whole world to salvation in the end.  He needed them to start out believing in His sovereignty.    

This lesson of the best way to live was SO IMPORTANT to God that He was willing to use some stubborn, selfish people who were deceiving others in order to teach the rest of the people the truth.  The truth was that Pharaoh wasn't really in charge!  God was in charge!  Pharaoh and his people had always worshiped false pagan gods and now THE REAL GOD was showing the Egyptians as well as His own people which of all the gods was REAL.  Not only did God want this generation of Israelites to know and recognize Him as THE ONE GOD; He also wanted them to pass down this truth to every generation that came after them.

And you know what?  It has happened just as God proclaimed it should happen.  Each year as we celebrate the Passover Seder, we teach our children about the plagues of Egypt.  We get detailed so they can know exactly WHO the God of the Hebrews is that we now worship and they can make a distinction between the REAL God and the false gods.  They can see in the story the consequences of believing in each.  Through the story of the plagues they understand the sovereignty of God.  They see that the REAL God brings life.  They see that the false gods bring death.  What could be more important to be teaching our children?  It is a lesson that is reviewed in detail every year, just as God has commanded.  Just as God was teaching the Children of Israel way back when; so we must be teaching today!  

God intended for this to be one of the first lessons to children in learning how to worship.  It is vitally important.  I say this from my own experiences.  Yet; today as I look around I also see these lessons have been set aside by many as unimportant and "something that happened to the Jews a long time ago, that do not pertain to us now."  Nothing could be further from the truth!  Though it is not openly spoken of you can see the seeping into our culture of the ways of pagan gods.  This is out there surrounding us every day, it is just not mentioned.  It is hardly noticed because we have become accustomed to it all.  You almost get the feeling of "if you ignore it, it will go away."  The worst thing a culture can do when paganism is seeping in is to ignore the situation.  That is exactly what Satan wants to happen.  That is what happened with the Egyptians, and God was not about to let that happen to the Israelites too.  They were to continue to KNOW the TRUTH and pass it down to all of their generations.  The fate of the world hinged on this one fact.    

Think about this as you study the rest of the story, and later we will go into the prophetic meaning of all of these plagues.  God had more than one reason for us to notice these details.  They may mean the difference in how we survive in the end times; but more on that later.  Let's get back to following Moses and hear the rest of what happened with Pharaoh. 

So Moses and Aaron went again to Pharaoh and said to him, “This is what the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, says : “How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me?  Let my people go so that they may worship me.  If you refuse to let them go, I will bring locusts into your country tomorrow.  They will cover the face of the ground so that it cannot be seen.  They will devour what little you have left after the hail, including every tree that is growing in your fields.  They will fill your houses and those of all your officials and all the Egyptians – something neither your parents nor your ancestors have ever seen from the day they settled in this land till now.”

Moses turned and left Pharaoh to chew on those words.

Pharaoh’s officials were standing there with him and they turned to Pharaoh and asked him “How long will this man be a snare to us?  Let the people go, so that they may worship the LORD their God.  Do you not yet realize that Egypt is ruined?”

So they brought Moses and Aaron back to Pharaoh and he told them to “Go, worship the LORD your God, but tell me who will be going.”

And Moses told Pharaoh that they would go with their young and their old, their sons and their daughters, and their flocks and their herds, because they were to celebrate a festival to the LORD.  Today we know this festival as The Seven Days of Unleavened Bread.  It occurs on the days following Passover and is considered part of the Passover festival.  The ancient Hebrews were the first to partake of a week of unleavened bread right after the first Passover happened in Egypt.  When this festival is celebrated we remember coming out of Egypt, leaving sin behind.  The leaven in the bread is symbolic of sin; and it is left out; just as happened with the Israelites we will hear about later in this story.  It is symbolic today of our desire to leave pagan gods and their ways out of our lives and stay true to The One God of Heaven and Earth.   We will speak further of this as we go along in the continuing story of how Moses led the people out of Egypt.  Right now, Pharaoh is being extremely difficult and hard-hearted again!

At first Pharaoh said “The Lord be with you.”  Then he hesitated and asked out loud, “If I let you go, along with your women and children………..Well….  Clearly you are bent on evil!  No!  Have only the men go and worship the LORD, since that is what you have been asking for.”

After Pharaoh decided that only the men could go; Moses and Aaron were driven out of Pharaoh’s presence.  That wasn't what God had commanded.  It would NOT work.  The Passover isn't just for the men, though it IS an annual requirement for every head of each household.  It is set in place for ALL THE HOUSEHOLD; each family including men, women, boys and girls, young and old alike.  All are invited to be a part of God's table, and God's feast and festivals.  God had declared that ALL of the people be allowed to go out to the wilderness and proclaim a festival to worship Him.  

Because of this mistake on Pharaoh's part, God said to Moses; “Stretch out your hand over Egypt so that locusts swarm over the land and devour everything growing in the fields, everything left by the hail.”

Moses stretched out his staff over Egypt, and the LORD made an east wind blow across the land all that day and all that night.  By morning the wind had brought the locusts; they invaded all of Egypt and they settled down in every area of the country in great numbers.  There has never been a plague with so many locusts; nor will there ever be such a plague again!  

The locusts were so many that the ground was black as they covered it.  They devoured everything in sight, everything growing in the fields and on the fruit trees.  Nothing green remained on a tree or a plant anywhere in the land of Egypt. 

When Pharaoh saw this he panicked!  He summoned Moses and Aaron and said that he had sinned against their God and against them.  Pharaoh asked them to forgive him once more and he also asked them to pray to the LORD to take away the deadly plague.

 

Moses prayed to the LORD and the LORD changed the wind to a very strong west wind, which caught up the locusts and carried them into the Red Sea. 

The swarms of locusts were all gone now; but again the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart and he would not let the Israelites go!

This being the case; the LORD told Moses to stretch out his hand toward the sky so that darkness spread over Egypt.  

It was a darkness that could actually be felt.  

When Moses stretched out his hand toward the sky the total darkness covered all of Egypt for three whole days.  No one could see anyone else or move about for three days.  Still, during this same time,all of the Israelites had light in the places where they lived.

 

Once again Pharaoh called to Moses and told him to “Go worship the LORD.  Even your women and children may go with you; only leave your flocks and herds behind.”

Moses explained to Pharaoh that they must have sacrifices and burnt offerings to present to the LORD God. Who goes to a festival without an offering?   Moses explained that in order to do this the livestock must go with them; all of them.  They would need them for sacrifices as well as food for the festival.   And when he said this the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart again.  He was not willing to let them go.  He told Moses to get out of his sight!  Pharaoh said he never wanted Moses to come to appear before him again!  He threatened to kill him if he ever saw his face again.  

“Just as you say,” Moses replied.  “I will never appear before you again.”  

It can be noted that Moses never again appeared before Pharaoh.  Now Pharaoh had no one to intercede between him and God.  He was isolated without any help.  Sometimes God isolates us without help in order to draw us unto Him and help us to come to our senses.  This didn't seem to work with Pharaoh.  Unless Pharaoh learned to speak directly to the REAL God of Heaven and Earth instead of his fake gods; he and Egypt were doomed.  Pharaoh had made a very bad decision in giving up his intercessor.  It was totally up to Pharaoh to turn to God and change things for Egypt.  Pharaoh wasn't learning the lesson.     

Don’t you know Moses was glad to go?  I’m sure he was pretty tired of having to deal with Pharaoh!  Do you have any Pharaoh's in your life?  Deal with them as long as God bids you to do so; then leave when God tells you to "go."  Only God knows if they will ever turn or not.

So now we have seen the Egyptians go through two more plagues; one of locusts and one of total thick darkness that could be felt.  

Why do you think God sent locusts and thick darkness on the land? 

The plague of the locusts focused on Nut, Osirus and Set, the false gods of the harvest.  The locusts took away all of the crops, leaving nothing for harvest.  The wheat and rye, the latter crops that had survived the hail were all gone now.  These are the crops that God's people always see around Pentecost.  They always brought an offering of barley at Passover and the wheat offering was offered at Pentecost; but Pharaoh's people in Egypt did not have any crops left to give to their fake gods.  Only the people of The One True God of Heaven and Earth had sufficient sacrifices and they were the only people now willing to offer them up!  

There was absolutely nothing left to harvest in all the land of Egypt.  Where were the gods of the harvest that usually protected their crops?  This is clearly a case of God saying He is the only real God.  It was as much for the Israelites to see as the Egyptians.  God intended for the Israelites to tell these stories to their children and grandchildren in order that the truth of God would be passed down from generation to generation and the horrid mistakes of the Egyptians of worshiping the wrong gods would never be repeated again.

The plague of the darkness was clearly an 'in the face' move of God toward the most worshiped pagan god named Ra.  Ra was the god of the sun.  There was no more sun!  For there days thick darkness covered the earth.  The sun god was dead!  There was no sign of Ra anywhere.

God was clearly showing that these false gods were not real gods.  They did not even exist.  They were imaginary in every way, and they had no power at all.  All of the things they stood for were turned on them and they never showed up to defend themselves!   What better proof could be offered?   

Ra was the god that was supposed to be Pharaoh’s ancestor.  That was where the power of Pharaoh was supposed to come from.  There clearly was no power passed down from Ra to Pharaoh, for Pharaoh was helpless now and sitting in the darkness without even the light of his false god.  Only the Israelites had light.  That is because the REAL God of the Hebrews is the Father of lights.  In HIM there is no darkness at all.  The Israelites could see clearly while the Egyptians groped around in the darkness.  Pharaoh had no one to turn to this time; not even Moses.