{"id":19109,"date":"2021-12-16T22:00:19","date_gmt":"2021-12-17T05:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/exodus-7_14-25-copy\/"},"modified":"2021-12-09T00:34:11","modified_gmt":"2021-12-09T07:34:11","slug":"exodus-8_1-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/exodus-8_1-15\/","title":{"rendered":"God and Sex"},"content":{"rendered":"

Exodus\u00a08:1-15\u00a0 Click here for Bible Verses<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hi GAMErs!<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is Exodus 8:1-15.\u00a0\u00a0Let\u2019s go!<\/p>\n

Exodus 8:1-6 (NIV)<\/em><\/strong>
\n1\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Then the\u00a0LORD\u00a0said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh and say to him, ‘This is what the\u00a0LORD\u00a0says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me.
\n2\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0If you refuse to let them go, I will plague your whole country with frogs.
\n3\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0The Nile will teem with frogs. They will come up into your palace and your bedroom and onto your bed, into the houses of your officials and on your people, and into your ovens and kneading troughs.
\n4\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0The frogs will go up on you and your people and all your officials.'”
\n5\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Then the\u00a0LORD\u00a0said to Moses, “Tell Aaron, ‘Stretch out your hand with your staff over the streams and canals and ponds, and make frogs come up on the land of Egypt.'”
\n6\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0So Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt, and the frogs came up and covered the land.<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 1-6:\u00a0\u00a0The ancient Egyptians worshiped Heket, who was known as the goddess of fertility and was represented by the frog.\u00a0\u00a0Sculptures and paintings of Heket depict her with the face of a frog.\u00a0\u00a0Apparently the worship of Heket informed the way Egyptians viewed sex and having babies.\u00a0\u00a0By causing frogs to appear everywhere in Egypt \u2013 in people\u2019s bedrooms and homes \u2013 and later causing the frogs to die in verse 13, the Lord was communicating that the Lord is far greater than Heket and that it is the Lord, not Heket, who reigns over the issues of sex and fertility.<\/p>\n

Also, the fact that frogs appear everywhere suggests to me that when the Lord is not reigning over the way we view sex, the result is a stinky mess.\u00a0\u00a0Like frogs everywhere, our lives and, in particular, the way we approach sex, becomes out of control, not in a wild and romantic way, but in a sickening and distressing way.\u00a0\u00a0Just as those of us who struggle with lustful thoughts can tend to turn almost any situation into an opportunity to lust, so frogs appeared all over Egypt.\u00a0\u00a0When our lives are controlled by lust, sex stops being something we enjoy and rather something that enslaves us.\u00a0\u00a0We need God\u2019s help and lordship in this area.<\/p>\n

Exodus 8:7-12 (NIV)<\/em><\/strong>
\n7\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0But the magicians did the same things by their secret arts; they also made frogs come up on the land of Egypt.<\/em>
\n8\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, “Pray to the\u00a0LORD\u00a0to take the frogs away from me and my people, and I will let your people go to offer sacrifices to the\u00a0LORD.”
\n9\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Moses said to Pharaoh, “I leave to you the honor of setting the time for me to pray for you and your officials and your people that you and your houses may be rid of the frogs, except for those that remain in the Nile.”
\n10\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0“Tomorrow,” Pharaoh said. Moses replied, “It will be as you say, so that you may know there is no one like the\u00a0LORD\u00a0our God.
\n11\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0The frogs will leave you and your houses, your officials and your people; they will remain only in the Nile.”
\n12\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0After Moses and Aaron left Pharaoh, Moses cried out to the\u00a0LORD\u00a0about the frogs he had brought on Pharaoh.<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 7-12:\u00a0\u00a0Notice that while the Egyptian magicians could seemingly replicate the appearance of frogs by their secret arts (v7), they could not by their secret arts remove the frogs.\u00a0\u00a0Pharaoh still needed to ask Moses to pray to the Lord for the frogs to leave (v8).\u00a0\u00a0It goes to show that occultic practices like divination, fortune telling, tarot cards, Ouija boards may have a certain power to them, but it\u2019s a power that only makes things worse instead of making things better.<\/p>\n

Exodus 8:13-14 (NIV)<\/em><\/strong>
\n13\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0And the\u00a0LORD\u00a0did what Moses asked. The frogs died in the houses, in the courtyards and in the fields.
\n14\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0They were piled into heaps, and the land reeked of them.<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 13-14:\u00a0\u00a0After the frogs had died and were removed from the Egyptians\u2019 homes, the land still reeked of frogs.\u00a0\u00a0Likewise, sin leaves a stench in our lives that doesn\u2019t always go away immediately.\u00a0\u00a0Getting rid of a sinful habit is important and necessary, but to the extent that the sinful habit caused hurt or damage to ourselves or others, there may still be some time before things smell normal again, even after we\u2019ve gotten rid of that sinful habit.<\/p>\n

Exodus 8:15 (NIV)<\/em><\/strong>
\n15\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0But when Pharaoh saw that there was relief, he hardened his heart and would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the\u00a0LORD\u00a0had said.<\/em><\/p>\n

On verse 15:\u00a0\u00a0Pharaoh does what a lot of us do: we only go to God when we have a problem, but when the problem goes away, we go back to living as if we are the centre of our own universe (not realizing that the reason for our problem in the first place was that we were living as if we are the centre of the universe!).\u00a0\u00a0So when you go to God with a problem and He gives you relief, unlike Pharaoh who hardened his heart, keep a soft heart before God and worship Him all the more.\u00a0\u00a0Remember that the reason God gave you relief was so that you could worship Him even more.<\/p>\n

Heavenly Father, I pray that You would reign over the way I view sex, my body, other people\u2019s bodies, and You, believing that Your way brings peace whereas the world\u2019s way only brings a mess.\u00a0\u00a0Come and be the centre of my universe.\u00a0\u00a0In Jesus\u2019 name, AMEN!<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi GAMErs!<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is Exodus 8:1-15.\u00a0\u00a0Let\u2019s go!<\/p>\n

Exodus 8:1-6 (NIV)
\n1\u00a0\u00a0Then the\u00a0LORD\u00a0said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh and say to him, ‘This is what the\u00a0LORD\u00a0says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me.
\n2\u00a0\u00a0If you refuse to let them go, I will plague your whole country with frogs.
\n3\u00a0\u00a0The Nile will teem with frogs. They will come up into your palace and your bedroom and onto your bed, into the houses of your officials and on your people, and into your ovens and kneading troughs.
\n4\u00a0\u00a0The frogs will go up on you and your people and all your officials.'”
\n5\u00a0\u00a0Then the\u00a0LORD\u00a0said to Moses, “Tell Aaron, ‘Stretch out your hand with your staff over the streams and canals and ponds, and make frogs come up on the land of Egypt.'”
\n6\u00a0\u00a0So Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt, and the frogs came up and covered the land.<\/p>\n

On verses 1-6:\u00a0\u00a0The ancient Egyptians worshiped Heket, who was known as the goddess of fertility and was represented by the frog.\u00a0\u00a0Sculptures and paintings of Heket depict her with the face of a frog.\u00a0\u00a0Apparently the worship of Heket informed the way Egyptians viewed sex and having babies.\u00a0\u00a0By causing frogs to appear everywhere in Egypt \u2013 in people\u2019s bedrooms and homes \u2013 and later causing the frogs to die in verse 13, the Lord was communicating that the Lord is far greater than Heket and that it is the Lord, not Heket, who reigns over the issues of sex and fertility.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19112,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gametime-sharing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19109"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19110,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19109\/revisions\/19110"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}