TAKE AWAY THE FROGS by C H SpurgeonFROM SWORD &
TROWEL 1999 No 2
Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron, and said, Intreat the Lord, that
he may take away the frogs from me, and from my people; and I will let the people go, that
they may do sacrifice unto the Lord (Exodus 8.8).
WHEN IT PLEASES God by His judgements to humble men He is
never at a loss for means. He can use lions or lice, famines or flies. In the armoury of God
there are weapons of every kind, from the stars in their courses down to caterpillars in their
hosts.
The dust of the earth, out of which man is formed, will at God’s command
leave its dunes and overwhelm a convoy. The waters will forsake their channels, take to the
tops of mountains and drown a rebellious race.
When the Lord contends against proud men He has but to lift His finger and
countless legions throng around Him, all loyal to their Lord and valiant for His name. Do
the proud not know that the beasts of the field are His servants, and the stones of the street
obey His bidding?
In the case before us, Jehovah has to deal with Pharaoh, and He humbles him
by frogs. How strange! How remarkable! One would never have thought that such
despicable means would have been used. The Lord began to deal with the proud monarch
by turning the waters into blood. But it may be that Pharaoh said in his heart, ‘What a great
man I must be for Jehovah to find it necessary to work a terrible miracle in order to conquer
me.’ Perhaps he went his way unhumbled.
This time the Lord will deal with him in another manner. The croaking frogs
which came up from all the banks of the Nile marched up in countless hordes from every
reservoir and marsh, entering into his chamber and coming upon his bed. He could neither
sleep nor eat nor walk abroad without encountering the loathsome reptiles. The Lord
seemed by this to say, ‘Who are you that I should do great things to conquer you? I will
even vanquish you by frogs.’
It was doubly appropriate for God to choose frogs to humble Egypt’s king,
because frogs were worshipped by that nation as emblems of the deity. Images of a certain
frog-headed goddess were placed in the catacombs, and frogs themselves were preserved
with sacred honours. These be your gods, O Egypt! You shall have more than enough of
them!
The Lord has sure ways of reaching the hearts of proud men. He knows how
to reach the rich, and make them sit begging. He can soon place the strong and healthy
among the invalids. His arrows can pierce through a sevenfold harness of steel. No person is
so protected as to be beyond the reach of the Almighty.
In drawing lessons from Pharaoh’s plight, I will begin by noting that -
in sore trouble the servants of the Lord are greatly valued.
‘Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron.’ On account of the frogs
he longs to see the ministers of the Lord. How is this? The man was brought to
his senses, and when this happens, people value those whom they previously despised.
Listen to this story. There came a man of God to Bethel, where King
Jeroboam was setting up the golden calves, and he began to cry against the altar. Then
Jeroboam stretched forth his hand, and cried, ‘Lay hold on him.’ In a moment the rebel’s
right arm withered, and hung by his side useless. Then he turned to the man of God, whom
he was about to arrest, and said, ‘Intreat the Lord for me.’ Persecutors have often been
forced to crouch at the feet of those whom they would have destroyed.
Another story will set forth the same truth. King Saul had been forsaken of
God, and the Philistines pressed hard upon him. In his extremity he resorted to a woman
who professed to deal with the spirits of the dead. With whom would he speak? He cries,
‘Bring me up Samuel.’ Samuel was the man who had most sternly rebuked him. One would
have thought that Samuel was the last person he would wish to see; but in his need he asks
for no one else but Samuel.
When ungodly men get into real troubles, they do not say, ‘Bring me up the
jolly fellow who drank with me.’ In their tribulation they think not of such. They do not cry,
‘Bring me up the person with whom I sported in sin, that I may again enjoy that person’s
company.’ In their distress they desire better advisers. They may say, ‘Oh, for an hour with
the man of God whom once I scorned!’ It is the old tale repeated - Pharaoh, when his
troubles were multiplied, calls for Moses and Aaron!
This is also to be accounted for by the fact that God puts a mysterious
honour upon His faithful servants. The painters place haloes about the heads of Bible
saints. There were no such crowns of light upon them literally, and yet within the portrayal
there lies a great truth. He who leads an upright, holy, gracious life has a power about him
which impresses the beholder. Pharaoh had said, ‘Get you unto your burdens,’ addressing
Moses and Aaron as if they were slaves; but now he sends for them, and pleads for their
prayers on his behalf.
A poor saint was laid at a rich man’s door, full of sores. He begged for the
crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table. ‘Moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.’
The rich man, clothed with purple and fine linen, took small note of this saint of God; but
what a change happened on a day when the beggar died, and was carried by angels into
Abraham’s bosom, and the rich man also died, and was buried! In hell the rich man lifted
up his eyes, and Lazarus had honour. He begged that Lazarus might be sent to cool his
burning tongue with the tip of his finger dipped in water. They had changed places, for God
had crowned His poor servant with glory and honour. The halo was around the head of
Lazarus.
This honour is undoubtedly set on believers that they may be of service to
ungodly people. God intends, by their means, to bless the penitent. When it was wheat
harvest, and a thunderstorm came because Israel desired a king, you remember that, while
the artillery of God was heard, the people trembled, and besought Samuel the prophet to
pray for them. He said, ‘God forbid that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for
you.’ Godly Samuel’s prayer was heard for them.
Much later on, an earthquake shook the foundations of a prison, and loosed
the bands of the prisoners. Then the gaoler woke up terrified that his prisoners had escaped,
and that he should have to die for it. But there stood Paul, the man whom he had thrust into
the inner prison, and whose feet he had made fast in the stocks. The gaoler, trembling
before him, cried out, ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’ The answer was given, he was
directed to believe and to be baptised, and the gaoler and his house were saved.
If God’s servants are treated with scorn and harshness they need not fear, for
they are put just where they are that unconverted men may be blessed by their agency. It is
clear that in times of trouble godly men and women are at a premium.
Secondly, in times of sore trial ungodly people find prayer to be
valuable. Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron, and said, ‘Intreat the Lord.’
Pharaoh begs an interest in the prayers of good men: this is a fine change since the day
wherein he said, ‘Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice?’
When people are sick and near to die, they send for us to pray with them.
That old philosopher, Bion, showed much wisdom in his biting sarcasm. He was on ship,
and found that among the passengers there were foul-mouthed desperadoes. While they
were venting all manner of abominations a storm came on, and they began to pray. Then
Bion cried out to them, ‘Hold your tongues, for if the gods only know that you
are here they will sink the vessel. Be quiet, lest your prayers should be our ruin.’ One’s
thoughts have run along these lines when we have seen men fulfilling the old adage -
When the devil was sick, the devil a saint would be.
Why is it that reprobates take to praying when they are in deep
trouble? Frequently, superstition moves them. They regard a prayer as a spell or
magical charm. So in their folly they send for a minister, and cry, ‘Intreat the Lord for me.’
In certain instances a person’s hope in prayer is the result of a
condemning faith. ‘What?’ you say. ‘Does faith ever condemn people?’ Yes. When
people have faith enough to know that there is a God Who sends judgements upon them,
and that nothing can remove those judgements but the hand that sent them. There are people
who yet never pray themselves, but cry to friends, ‘Intreat the Lord for me.’ There is a
measure of faith which goes to increase a person’s condemnation, since he ought to know
that if what he believes is true, then the proper thing is to pray himself.
It would have been a wonderfully good sign if Pharaoh had said, ‘Join with
me, O Moses and Aaron, while I pray unto Jehovah that He may take the frogs from me.’
But, no, he had only a condemning faith, which contented itself with other men’s prayers.
In many instances this desire for prayer is one of the movements of the
Spirit upon the heart of man. When a poor, afflicted man, in the depth of poverty,
struck with consumption, or laid aside by some other deadly disease, desires that a minister
would come and pray with him: we will never treat such a wish with neglect. While it is our
duty to expose the superstition which often lurks beneath the wish, we also hope that some
good thing towards the Lord may be in it. It is, perhaps, the prodigal saying, ‘I will arise,
and go unto my Father, and I will inquire the way home.’ I hope it is so.
Our third observation is this - in sore trouble the prayer is often a
wrong one. The petitions which people offer when they are in distress are often
wrong prayers. Pharaoh said - ‘Intreat the Lord, that he may take away the frogs from me.’
A fatal flaw is manifest in that prayer. It contains no confession of
sin. He does not say, ‘I have rebelled against the Lord; intreat that I may find
forgiveness!’ He loves sin as much as ever. A prayer without penitence is a prayer without
acceptance. If no tear has fallen upon it, it is withered. You must come to God as a sinner
through a Saviour, but by no other way. He that comes to God like the Pharisee, with, ‘God,
I thank thee, that I am not as other men are,’ never draws near to God at all; but he that
cries, ‘God be merciful to me a sinner,’ has come to God by the way which God has
Himself appointed.
Pharaoh’s prayer dealt only with the punishment:
‘Take away the frogs; take away the frogs; take away the frogs.’ That is his one cry.
So we hear the sick exclaim, ‘Pray that I may get well.’ The drunkard begs that he may
be helped out of his poverty. The impenitent sinner cries, ‘Pray that my child may not be
taken from me.’
It is not wrong to pray, ‘Take away the frogs.’ The evil is that this was the
whole of his prayer. He said not, ‘Take away my sins,’ but, ‘Take away the frogs.’ He did
not cry, ‘Lord, take away my heart of stone,’ but only, ‘Take away the frogs.’ The Lord did
hear his petition, but nothing came of it. The frogs were gone, but flies came directly after,
and all sorts of plagues followed in rapid succession, and his heart was hardened still.
When Cain had murdered his brother did he express a regret? No. He only
murmured, ‘My punishment is greater than I can bear.’ Esau sold his birthright. Did he
repent of the sin of having been a profane person, and seek pardon carefully? Not he; but he
sought carefully with tears to get back his birthright, and he found no place for repentance
in his father Isaac; the blessing had gone to Jacob, and on Jacob it must remain.
Another telling case is that of Simon Magus. When Peter told him that he
was in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity he replied, ‘Pray ye to the Lord for
me, that none of these things which ye have spoken come upon me;’ that was all he cared
about. He expressed no desire to be delivered from his evil way, but only to be screened
from the consequences of it.
Our last remark is - that the sinner in his sore troubles is very apt to
make great promises.
Pharaoh cried, ‘Take away the frogs . . . and I will let the people go, that they
may do sacrifice unto the Lord.’ In this way people have talked when they were down with
fever, or when they were in some alarming situation. They have said, ‘Please God I escape
this once, I will be a very different man.’
Such promises are generally boastful. Notice here the proud
language of Pharaoh. ‘I will let the people go.’ He is a great king, and he gives
his royal word. ‘I will let the people go.’
Some folks are very big when they promise God, ‘I will do this, and I will do
that.’ But they cannot. They say that they are going to have a new heart and a right spirit.
Are they looking to create it in themselves? True conversion does not begin by talking of
what ‘I’ will do. It begins in casting ourselves upon the Lord, and begging Him
to work all our works in us.
Pharaoh’s promises were all a lie. I dare say that for the
moment he meant them; but he did not keep his word, for he did not let the people go.
‘When Pharaoh saw that there was respite, he hardened his heart, and hearkened not unto
them; as the Lord had said.’ Has not that been the case with many others? They promised
‘faithfully’, but it was not so. God says to them, ‘Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto
God.’
Mark well that, in all this, Pharaoh increased his guilt. His
vows heaped up his transgressions. He forgot his promises; but God did not. They were laid
by in store against him, and the blows of God upon him fell heavier and heavier, until at last
Jehovah drowned him and his chosen captains in the Red Sea.
I will tell you how God deals with His own children. A certain man, to all
appearance, feared God with a sincere heart. He was once an earnest Christian, a member of
the church, and a worker in its service, faithful to his light, and fervent in spirit. But he grew
cold. He had a farm, and it occupied nearly all his time. He was filled with an intense desire
to grow rich, and therefore he devoted his attention to his business till he grew colder and
colder in divine things, and the means of grace on weekdays were forsaken.
Work for God was dropped, communion with God ceased, and he became to
all appearance an utter worldling. But yet he was a child of God, and this is how his Father
restored him. He took from him the wife of his youth to whom his heart was knit. But this
made him more worldly than before, because his wife had been a great help to him in the
farm, and now she was gone he must stick to it more than ever.
Nothing came of the first chastisement except increased sin. He had only one
son, for whom he was saving up his money, and working his business, but he saw his son
cut down with consumption, like his mother. This also made him still more worldly. It
ought to have brought him to his knees, but it did not.
He carried on the practice of prayer, but with little heart. He said, ‘Now my
dear son, who was such a comfort to me, has gone, I can hardly get out on Sundays at all.
I must look after the cows and attend to the stock.’ So he sank deeper in the
mire.
Then the Lord began to deal with him in another way. He had a bad season,
and his farm lost money, careful as he was. Next year was worse, and cattle plague emptied
his stalls. He was brought down to poverty and could barely keep at the farm, for the rent
ran behind. Still he did not yield.
He had tender moments now and then, but he was usually hard, for he now
felt that God was dealing severely with him. He felt angry against God, stuck to his business
more than ever, and the things of God were forgotten.
Then the Lord took his erring child more closely to hand than before, and
sent him an incurable disease. The worldly farmer lay upon a sick-bed worrying. He did not
turn to the Lord even then.
Last of all, his house caught fire, and as the barn, ricks, and house were
ablaze, they carried him out into the open air upon the bed from which he could not stir, and
he was heard to say, ‘Blessed be the Lord! Blessed be the Lord! I am cured at last.’
Nothing would cure him till everything was gone from him. Was not that a
pity? He was saved so as by fire. He would be ‘as the horse, or as the mule, which have no
understanding: whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle,’ and therefore he had to
suffer for it. I pray you do not copy him.
People of God, do not make rods for your own backs in that way. Do not
drive your heavenly Father to hard measures. If He means to bless you He will not let you
go unpunished; but He will smite you with heavy strokes. I remember one who used to bless
God for a broken leg. He said that he never ran in the ways of God until he was lame.
I believe that some parents never loved the heavenly Father till their dear
infant child was taken away. The Shepherd tried to get the mother sheep into the fold, but
she would not come; so He took up her lamb and carried it away in His arms, and then the
mother followed Him.
To the unconverted reader our text says - ‘You have been smitten till your
whole head is sick and your whole heart faint.’
Will you not turn unto your God without more ado? His blows are sent in
mercy: it is better far that you should have a hell here than a hell hereafter. It is better for
you to live a lifelong agony than to be cast into hell for ever.
Edited from a ‘sermonette’ by C H Spurgeon in The Sword & the Trowel
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