G'day, Dave here.

Welcome to stories of a faithful God for kids

grown ups.

Don't forget to check out the longer deep dive

episodes on my other podcast, stories of a faithful God.

Yesterday we saw the start of the amazing things God was doing in Egypt.

He's sending ten plagues or ten signs to show his awesome power.

Ten signs to show his faithfulness to his people.

Ten signs to show his anger at the sin of Egypt.

Ten signs that show that he is the real God, the only one people should trust and obey.

And the gods of Egypt are fake.

The first sign was when God turned the water

in the Nile river into blood.

That is amazing power.

What's he gonna do next? If you listened right to the end of the last

episode, you would have heard a clue.

Get ready for our next episode of stories of a

faithful God for kids.

God's turn the whole river to blood.

Seven days go past.

I assume in that time, water slowly washes the

blood away.

And the Egyptians might think, phew, it's all

over.

But actually it's just the beginning.

God's about to send something else on Egypt, frogs.

That might be a bit surprising.

You might not think that's very painful for

Egypt if part of what God's doing is punishing them for the way they've treated him and his

people.

Why frogs?

I mean, some of you may have frogs as pets.

Some of you might even eat frogs.

Um, probably not that one.

Anyway, listen carefully, though to how many

frogs are going to come and where they're going to go.

Let me read to you from Exodus, chapter eight, verse one.

Then the Lord told Moses, go to the king of Egypt and tell him, this is what the Lord

says.

Let my people go to worship me.

If you refuse, then I will punish Egypt with frogs.

The Nile river will be filled with frogs.

They will come from the river and enter your

palace.

They will be in your bedroom and your bed.

The frogs will enter the houses of your officers and your people.

They will enter your ovens and your baking pans.

The frogs will jump up all over you, your people and your officers.

These frogs are going to be everywhere.

Imagine going to put your pyjamas on at night.

You slide your leg in and oh, it's filled with frogs.

You go to the toilet and there's frogs everywhere.

You go to make some dinner and the frying pan is filled with frogs.

And it doesn't matter if you're rich or poor, if you're a pharaoh or a street sweeper, boy

or girl, the frogs go everywhere and on everyone.

Everyone in Egypt is affected by this, as gross as that is.

Remember yesterday how turning the river to blood wasn't just about the water?

There was a God of Egypt called happy.

And the real God, the God of Israel, was

saying, he's not real.

I'm the one with all the power.

Well, the same sort of thing's happening here.

The Egyptians had a frog headed God called

Hecate.

And the true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac

and Jacob, is saying, actually I'm in charge of all the frogs.

Remember? He wants people to know him.

People often invent other gods because they don't really want to know the true God in

Egypt.

God's not letting them get away with that.

Can you imagine being able to control thousands and thousands and thousands of

frogs? God, the real God, is so powerful.

There's something else going on here as well.

Heket, the frog headed God, was meant to be

the God of birth and having lots of babies.

The Egyptians wanted Hecate to give them lots

of babies.

That's not what the Egyptians had wanted for

the Israelites, though.

They'd thrown the israelite baby boys into the

nile.

Now God's showing his power over the frogs and

over Hecate, which means he also has power over babies and children.

If the Egyptians have lots of people, they have lots of babies.

It's because the God of the Israelites gave them, not some fake made up frog God.

And this same God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, is really angry with what the

Egyptians did to the babies of his people.

Like yesterday, though he doesn't give them

everything they deserve.

The frogs are gross and annoying and interrupt

all of life, but they dont take away your life.

God kindly uses them to show the Egyptians who he is.

So God sends the frogs.

They pour out of the rivers and canals and

ponds, coming into peoples homes, climbing all over them, crawling on pharaoh and his

officials and his people.

The egyptian magicians do their tricks and

they make frogs as well.

But that actually just means that there are

more frogs around.

They haven't helped the problem at all.

They also can't send the frogs away.

They and their gods are not in charge.

So as much as he doesn't like it, Pharaoh has to go back to Moses and Aaron.

In verse eight he says to them, pray to the Lord to take the frogs away from me and my

people.

I will let your people go to offer sacrifices

to the Lord.

Woohoo.

God's won.

His people are gonna be set free.

Now.

They don't want pharaoh to think that the

crowds just go away by themselves.

And so they ask him to choose a time when it

should happen.

That way he should know it really is God doing

this.

And the king says, tomorrow in verse ten, we

are told, Moses said, what you want will happen.

By this you will know that there is no one like the Lord, our God.

The frogs will leave you, your houses, your officers and your people.

They will remain only in the nile.

Moses and Aaron left the king.

Moses asked the lord about the frogs he had sent to the king.

And the lord did as Moses asked.

The frogs died in the houses, in the yards and

in the fields.

The Egyptians put them in piles.

The whole country began to stink.

Have you ever smelled a rotting piece of meat

or a dead animal? I used to teach in a hot town.

And one day something died in the walls of the classroom.

We couldn't find it anywhere, and the stink was so bad, we had to move our class to the

library for a few days.

Now imagine a whole country filled with

stinky, rotten piles of dead frogs.

But at least they know it's coming to an end,

right? The Egyptians won't have frogs in their pants

anymore, and the Israelites can leave.

Except as soon as the problem's over, Pharaoh

changes his mind.

Verse 15 says, when the king saw that they

were free of the frogs, he became stubborn again.

He did not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the lord had said.

It turns out it's not just the frogs that are stinky.

The king's a bit of a stinker as well.

But don't panic.

God said this would happen.

He's still in charge, and he's only just

getting warmed up.

Plague number three is something called gnats.

Gnats are tiny little flying bugs.

They don't bite you, but imagine your whole

body being covered by them.

In your hair, in your armpits, crawling up

your legs, inside your clothes.

Here's what happens from verse 16.

Then the Lord said to Moses, tell Aaron to raise his walking stick and strike the dust on

the ground.

Then everywhere in Egypt, the dust will change

into gnats.

They did this.

Aaron raised the walking stick that was in his hand and struck the dust on the ground.

Then everywhere in Egypt, the dust changed into gnats.

The gnats got on the people and the animals.

That would be so uncomfortable.

Think about it, though.

Have you ever tried to make a small flying bug

go exactly where you want it to go? What about two bugs?

Three? What about millions and millions?

Because that's what God does.

He controls every single one.

He also makes them out of the dust.

This is amazing.

Now, so far the magicians have been able to copy what God does this time.

They try, but they can't do it.

And they figure this must be God doing this.

And they're right.

The God who made the gnats is the same God who

made the sun and the moon and the stars and whales and dogs and cats and elephants and

trees and porcupines and monkeys and humans and rivers and oceans and mountains.

Whew.

He made everything.

Let me read it to you from verse 18.

Using their tricks, the magicians tried to do

the same thing, but they could not make the dust change into gnats.

The gnats remained on the people and animals.

So the magicians told the king that the power

of God had done this.

But the king was stubborn and refused to

listen to them.

This happened just as the Lord had said.

Oh pharaoh, what are you doing? This is craziness.

But still, this is exactly what the Lord said would happen.

It's all part of his plan.

We're three plagues down.

These three have been the easiest three.

They only get bigger and harder from here.

But thats a story for next time.

See you then.

Thanks so much for listening adults.

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Sa.