Ten plagues were needed in order for God to force Pharaoh's hand into releasing the Israelites from Egyptian slavery. Today's message will focus on a statement made about the 8th of these plagues. It is a remarkable statement and one which must have come for one of two sources. It either came from an all-powerful God or someone who should be given no credibility whatsoever. You can be the judge.
“Then the LORD said to Moses, 'Stretch out your hand over the land of Egypt for the locusts, that they may come upon the land of Egypt, and eat every herb of the land--all that the hail has left.' So Moses stretched out his rod over the land of Egypt, and the LORD brought an east wind on the land all that day and all that night. When it was morning, the east wind brought the locusts. And the locusts went up over all the land of Egypt and rested on all the territory of Egypt. They were very severe; previously there had been no such locusts as they, nor shall there be such after them. For they covered the face of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened; and they ate every herb of the land and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had left. So there remained nothing green on the trees or on the plants of the field throughout all the land of Egypt. Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron in haste, and said, 'I have sinned against the LORD your God and against you. Now therefore, please forgive my sin only this once, and entreat the LORD your God, that He may take away from me this death only.' So he went out from Pharaoh and entreated the LORD. And the LORD turned a very strong west wind, which took the locusts away and blew them into the Red Sea. There remained not one locust in all the territory of Egypt.” (John 10.14-21).
The miracle was not the fact of the locus, but the severity of the locusts, the suddenness of their appearance, and the suddenness of their disappearance. Locusts were no stranger to Egypt but never had they come like this and never had they disappeared like this. However, the last statement in the passage quoted (above) could only be made by a supernatural power or by someone who had no right to be believed at all. The last statement reads “...There remained not one locust in all the territory of Egypt.” This statement affirmed that not a single, solitary locust remained in the land of hundreds of thousands of square miles. How could anyone know that to be the case? And, what kind of person would claim it to be the case other than someone who could make it true?
Moses, the author of the book of Exodus, wrote contemporary with the events described in the book. His immediate readers were also eye witnesses of many of the events described in the book. It would have been easy, in fact expected, for Moses to have been discredited had he not described accurately the events about which he wrote. In fact, his leadership of the nation hinged on the accuracy of his record; if he spoke incorrectly, then his leadership would have been overturned and his work as a prophet would have been fraudulent. Now it wasn't as if he had no enemies in the Israelite nation. In fact, on numerous occasions his fellow-Israelites challenged his leadership, but there was not a single case in which they challenged the accuracy of the things which he spoke or wrote! This is remarkable given the nature of his leadership and the open hostility that was frequently displayed toward him.
As we noted in the outset, the statement “...There remained not one locust in all the territory of Egypt,” could only come from one of two sources. Either God authored these words via Moses' inspired pen, or they came from a source with no credibility at all. In as much as an entire nation, and many of them hostile, accepted Moses' writings without challenge, the fact that God authored these events and the book that describes them is the only plausible answer with which we are left.
Questions:
1. How many plagues were sent on Egypt before Pharaoh decided to release the Israelites?
2. How did the plagues help persuade others of the fact that Moses was a spokesperson for God?
3. Had Moses spoken or written an untruth, is it likely that he would have been exposed by his fellow countrymen? Why or why not?
4. How hard is it to prove a universal negative proposition (e.g. there was not one locust left in all the territory of Egypt)? What is proven by the fact that apparently no one found fault with that statement?