Exodus 5-8
In the 20th book of Exodus we read about idols and other gods.
“You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God,
punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but
showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments."
God becomes angry when we give to others the things that belong to Him. In this country we don't see golden calves or sacred cows. But how many places can you get a little Buddha statue or a Jamaican tiki mask because it's cute? How many times do we think of the things we can do with our money that in no way do anything to glorify Him?
See, those things are substitutes for the real Jehovah God. The Bible teaches that if we put anything in the place that God deserves then they are idols or false gods. Notice the lower case "g" on that. Today there are idols like cars and computers and sex and drugs and alcohol. There are many, many more and other things were there in Pharaoh's time. When Moses and Aaron began to talk with Pharaoh about the Lord, he wanted nothing to do with it, saying “Who is the LORD, that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know the LORD and I will not let Israel go.” In fact Pharaoh and the Egyptians had many gods that they worshiped. To answer Pharaohs question, there were ten plagues sent out over Egypt. Some of them seem so bazaar and random but each one actually corresponded to one of Egypts gods. This was how God showed His supremacy over all of the other gods. Lets take a look at just a couple of those 'gods' and see what their significance in our passage might be.
“You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God,
punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but
showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments."
God becomes angry when we give to others the things that belong to Him. In this country we don't see golden calves or sacred cows. But how many places can you get a little Buddha statue or a Jamaican tiki mask because it's cute? How many times do we think of the things we can do with our money that in no way do anything to glorify Him?
See, those things are substitutes for the real Jehovah God. The Bible teaches that if we put anything in the place that God deserves then they are idols or false gods. Notice the lower case "g" on that. Today there are idols like cars and computers and sex and drugs and alcohol. There are many, many more and other things were there in Pharaoh's time. When Moses and Aaron began to talk with Pharaoh about the Lord, he wanted nothing to do with it, saying “Who is the LORD, that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know the LORD and I will not let Israel go.” In fact Pharaoh and the Egyptians had many gods that they worshiped. To answer Pharaohs question, there were ten plagues sent out over Egypt. Some of them seem so bazaar and random but each one actually corresponded to one of Egypts gods. This was how God showed His supremacy over all of the other gods. Lets take a look at just a couple of those 'gods' and see what their significance in our passage might be.
The Egyptian goddess of fertility and childbirth was Heket. In the time of Pharaoh, pregnant woman wore an amulet of her around their neck and believed in her for protection. It was also believed that she was able to resurrect the dead. Her image could often be found at funerals in the hope that life might be restored to the deceased simply by her presence. Jehovah God showed His dominance over Heket in the plague of frogs. There were frogs EVERYWHERE. In the streets, in the rivers, in your house and bathtub and linen closet, in the pocket of your favorite jacket and in the toilet. How did any of the plagues correlate with her at all? It's simple, she was depicted as a woman with the head of a frog.
An interesting fact about the scarab beetle: the scarab lays its eggs in a ball of dung and rolls it to hide in a safe place. Then, from this poo ball, emerge the baby beetles coming from seemingly nowhere. Similarly, they believed that Khephri, in the form of a gigantic scarab, rolled the sun like a huge ball through the sky, then rolled it through the underworld to the eastern horizon overnight. Each morning Khephri would renew the sun so that it could give life to all the world. His 'power' was shown faulty by the plague of flies.
We'll continue looking at the gods and the plagues when we get back into Exodus. But, for now, aren't you glad that we serve a mighty and powerful God? I struggle daily to do what I think God is calling me to do. And that's just with one! The ancient Egyptian culture had over 8700 gods to appease!!! Can you imagine? But that is the problem with religion. Religion is a continuing failure of man trying to do what the gods expect from us. Religion is a set of rules set up by a god, or many, many gods that attempt to help us understand and cope with life. But we have one God, the Creator of the universe, Jehovah. He doesn't roll the sun around like a ball, He hung it in the sky. He doesn't have the head bug or a frog but He has a head like us. He doesn't bog us down with rules and enslaving ritual. Quite the contrary, He loves us. He loves YOU. The only desire in the heart of God is to love you and for you to love Him. He wants a relationship with YOU! That is, after all, why He created you.