Frogs...


If you've spend any time in church, there is no doubt you've heard the story of Moses - and the plagues that God brought down upon Egypt as Moses was asking Pharaoh to "let my people go."

In the first plague, God turned the water in Egypt into blood.  The fish in the Nile died, and the river smelled so bad that no one could drink it.  "Blood was everywhere in Egypt, even in vessels of wood and stone." (Exodus 7:19)

But Pharaoh refused to let the Israelites go.

Then, in Exodus 8 - God sent a plague of frogs.  The Bible says the Nile teemed with frogs and that they came up into the palace and into the Pharoah's bedroom, and onto his bed.  They were in the houses of his officials and on his people, and even in the ovens and kneading troughs.

Can you imagine?!

But when Pharaoh summoned Moses and said, "Pray to the Lord to take the frogs away from me and my people, and I will let your people go to offer sacrifices to the Lord." (Exodus 8:8)  Moses gave Pharaoh the option of deciding when this would happen and INCREDIBLY - Pharaoh said, "tomorrow."

WTH?!? (that's HECK by the way). Why would someone who has been overrun by frogs delay even a minute - let alone a DAY before they got rid of them?  I'll tell you what I think.

I think frogs are a lot like sin.  The more you have - the less you seem to mind.

If I look at the world today it is overrun with sin.  In most major cities there are reports of "smash and grab" stealings.  So many of our politicians appear to be corrupt.  Our schools seem to be pushing ideological agendas. People are being trafficked for sex or slavery.  And things that once were immediately recognized as sin are now being tolerated - and in some cases even celebrated.

We have become like Pharaoh, willing to tolerate the frogs.

Yesterday we talked a little about King David - and today I'm going to reference him again.  King David was someone who wanted to rule righteously and the Bible says he was a man after God's own heart.

Psalm 101 was his prayer:

I will sing of your love and justice; to you, Lord I will sing praise.  I will be careful to lead a blameless life - when will you come to me?

I will conduct the affairs of my house with a blameless heart.  I will not look with approval on anything that is vile.

I hate what faithless people do; I will have no part in it.  The perverse of heart shall be far from me; I will have nothing to do with what is evil.

Whoever slanders their neighbor in secret, I will put to silence; whoever has haughty eyes and a proud heart, I will not tolerate.

My eyes will be on the faithful in the land, that they may dwell with me, the one whose walk is blameless will minister to me.

No one who practices deceit will dwell in my house; no one who speaks falsely will stand in my presence.

Every morning I will put to silence all the wicked in the land; I will cut off every evildoer from the city of the Lord.

What we do, what we watch, who we vote for, the friends we keep. the sins we tolerate... All of these are the ways that "frogs" can creep into our lives.  The trick is not to wait until "tomorrow" to do something about them..

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