The judgment of God on that day will be far more severe than all the plagues against the Egyptians, which means that every person ought to give the best of their attention to discovering whether they are counted among God’s people or not. Again, the Israelites were no less sinners than the Egyptians; they were spared simply because God chose them to be His people. The wrath of God will soon be poured out once for all, so we should strive to dwell in a land greater than Goshen.

Last week we began to study the ten great plagues that the LORD brought upon the land of Egypt in response to Pharaoh’s stubborn refusal to let God’s people go. We continue here with the second set of three plagues, and there is indeed textual evidence for viewing the first nine plagues as three sets of three all leading up to the tenth and final wonder that God would work. Each set follows a similar pattern. Plagues one, four, and seven all have Moses and Aaron going out to meet Pharaoh in the morning. Plagues two, five, and eight all see the prophets going into Pharaoh’s palace. Finally, plagues three, six, and nine are each brought forth with no warning given to the king of Egypt.
There also appears to be themes that connect each set of three plagues. The first three focus upon the Nile and the dust of Egypt being turned from instruments of sustenance to instruments of pestilence, and they also end with Pharaoh’s magicians bowing out of the conflict. The second three seem to be directed at the people and households of Egypt and particularly emphasize the distinction that God made between the Egyptians and the Israelites. The third set of three are each plagues that come from the heavens, while also showing that even Pharaoh’s servants were beginning to protest against him.
I will Set Apart the Land of Goshen // Verses 20-32
The fourth plague begins with Moses and Aaron again going before Pharaoh in the morning as he went out to the Nile. God’s demand is the same: Let my people go, that they may serve me. Of course, the Egyptian king was not yet going to obey the LORD, so a plague of flies was both threatened and enacted.
As with the gnats, the exact insect that God brought upon Egypt is unclear. Perhaps they were the very household flies that we still swat at today. They also could have been some sort of biting fly. Some think that a swarm of scarab beetles is being described. Again, we simply do not know which insect the LORD used here. Both some type of fly and scarabs would have been significant to the Egyptians. If this was a swarm of flies, then perhaps this was the desecration of Uatchit or even of Beelzebub, who was also worshiped by some Egyptians.[1] If this was a swarm of scarabs, then a sacred emblem of Egypt was being cast in full upon them, similar to the plague of frogs. Indeed, we should remember that the text before us is God’s inspired Word, not the historical event itself. Therefore, even if the LORD only brought one kind of insect upon the Egyptians, perhaps the insect is purposely ambiguous as a way of displaying that God could have used either.
A new element is now added to the plague equation.
But on that day I will set apart the land of Goshen, where my people dwell, so that no swarms of flies shall be there, that you may know that I am the LORD in the midst of the earth. Thus I will put a division between my people and your people.
While it seems likely that God also shielded His people from the effects of the first three plagues, the distinction was explicitly pointed out to Pharaoh in this fourth plague. While there is much to say about this division between the Israelites and the Egyptians, it is a theme that runs throughout these three plagues, so we will discuss it more fully toward the end.
Here is another one of God’s ironic reversals. In chapter 1, Pharaoh and the Egyptians set themselves apart from the Israelites that were “swarming” their land by enslaving them and then murdering their infant sons. Here the LORD is only widening the distinction that the Egyptians had already made, and He is showing them what an actual swarm looks like.
In response to the ruining of Egypt with flies, Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron to say, Go, sacrifice to your God within the land. Here we see a progression in the language of Pharaoh. In response to the second plague, he said that he would let the people go if Moses and Aaron would plead with the LORD to take away the frogs. Now we find his immediate command for Moses and Aaron to take the Israelites to make their sacrifices to the LORD. How wonderful! Or is it?
Notice the compromise that Pharaoh is demanding. He permitted them to sacrifice so long as they remained in Egypt, yet that was not Yahweh’s demand. The LORD demanded that His people be given leave to go a three-day’s journey into the wilderness to worship Him. Especially given the reality that this would not be Pharaoh’s final attempt at reaching a compromise, we should take time to consider the dangers therein. You see, it would have been all too easy for the fearful Moses to justify going along with this compromise. After all, Pharaoh was going to let them worship the LORD. That was what truly mattered, right?
As time goes on, I come to an ever-greater appreciation of the regulative principle of worship, which argues that the church’s gathered worship should be regulated by what Scripture commands us to do. Those commands would be to pray, to sing, to preach the Word, and to observe the ordinances. While there is certainly a great amount of freedom in how each congregation can practice those elements of worship, virtually everything else is being excluded from the Lord’s Day gathering. I continue to see the benefit of that regulation because within our age of self, it is all too easy for us to turn worshiping God into work of self-actualization.
In other words, we like to individualize worship just as much as we individualize everything else. We see this at play whenever someone claims that doing [insert any given hobby] is more worshipful to them than going to church. We also see it in the lives of Christians who can never settle into a particular congregation because they cannot find their Goldilocks church that is neither too hot nor too cold but just right. The sorrowful reality is that they may have already found membership within the church of Laodicea.
Of course, this mentality is by no means limited to corporate worship because we all are capable of turning to various things for spiritual nourishment instead of reading and meditating upon God’s Word. Scripture is clear, however, that God does not simply demand worship; He also demands to be worshiped in a correct manner, in obedience to His commands. We see this in the First and Second Commandments. The First Commandment demands that we worship God alone, but the Second Commandment (and even the Third and Fourth as well) dictates how God is to be worshiped. The form matters. Indeed, the LORD told His people through the prophet Isaiah that He hated their sacrifices and festivals because of their wicked hearts (see Isaiah 1). They happily worshiped God yet still held onto their sin. They accepted a variation of Pharaoh’s compromise, thinking that they could worship the LORD without ever leaving their own personal Egypts.
Are you likewise compromising? Is their sin that you still cling to, hoping that it is small enough not to negatively impact your worship of the Holy One? More broadly, how do you think of worship in the first place? Is your view of worship rooted in the scriptural commands of God or in your perceived individual needs?
But Moses said, “It would not be right to do so, for the offerings we shall sacrifice to the LORD our God are an abomination to the Egyptians. If we sacrifice offerings abominable to the Egyptians before their eyes, will they not stone us? We must go three days’ journey into the wilderness and sacrifice to the LORD our God as he tells us.”
Take note of Moses’ answer to Pharaoh’s proposed compromise. He began by immediately declaring that it would not be right for them to accept the king’s offer, but he then offered two reasons as to why.
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These two, salt and light, provide the great purposes of our lives as believers. God will bring you into certain ministries or callings or activities that will give structure to this, but remembering constantly that we have been made to be distinct in the world and illuminating is enough to give you that reason for living you desperately need. 

I queried an older man who has become a dear friend with a pointedly stark question: what is your purpose in life? He is advanced in years. He ought to know by now. The question struck home, and he teared up trying to answer it.
He failed. He had nothing much to say. And he felt the pain of the emptiness that lingered in the air as he tried. He seemed not to like what fumbled out and admitted he was unable to answer satisfactorily. I appreciated his honesty.
Imagine what it means for anyone, young or old, to exist for a precious few years on planet earth, staring at eternity during his or her only trip through, without any noble purpose. Imagine coasting in neutral to hell. I once read the final statement of a person of notoriety in journalism who had taken his life. He wrote, “I might as well have played ping pong all my life.”
At the time I had this revealing discussion, I had been meditating and discussing concepts from the Sermon on the Mount with a friend every week who lived many States away. We had recently discussed that section containing the often misused and unfortunately worn words, “salt and light.” You remember it, don’t you?
You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how will it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out to be trampled under foot by men.
You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lamp stand, and it gives light to all who are in the house.
Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven. (Mt 5:16-18, LSB)
We noted in our reflections that there is purpose here. You recall, I’m sure, that Jesus began his sermon with what is called “the beatitudes,” which is a kind of portrait of the blessed follower of Christ. This was the formula Christ used: “Blessed are the ________, for they will ___________.” The word “blessed” is followed by a descriptive name for those blessed (for instance, “the pure in heart,” meaning those focused singularly on God) and a statement concerning the specific way the blessing will be realized (“for they shall see God”). The specific blessings are those promised throughout Scripture for every believer and the descriptive name of such people is characteristic of each of those believers as well.
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The institutional church is comprised of individuals who gather on the Lord’s Day and then scatter into the world to live out their respective callings before God. Consequently, the institutional church’s primary ministry on Sunday is not to reform the institutions of this world, or even reach the world for Christ, but to build up the saints in their worship of God. To that end, it is primarily on Sunday that the church’s members become equipped to fulfill their respective callings in the world, which includes (a) the mission work of the institutional church as well as (b) bringing biblical precepts to bear upon the ideologies of political, economic, and social institutions.

This interview conducted by Crossway caught my attention. It has to do with the institutional church, its spirituality, and Christian nationalism. My interest is limited to how the institutional church, which is made up of many members, is to relate to temporal yet lawful institutions in the world.
I find two quotes from the interview to be a bit puzzling.
“No other institution is called to go into all the world and preach the gospel. The family? No. The state? No. The university? No. The publisher isn’t called to go into all the world and preach the gospel. That call is given to the church. And if the church becomes chiefly a political, economic, or social institution, it becomes an institution that is just one more form of kind of shouted political slogans in the cacophony and all the noise of our very polarized politicized age. If the church just becomes that, it loses that voice. It loses its proper agency. It loses its grip and its grasp on the gospel. And if the church loses the gospel, who has it? Where is the gospel? The church is called to preach the gospel to the world.”
It is one thing for the institutional church to become a political mouthpiece from the pulpit, and quite another thing for the institutional church to posses a proper political zeal in the world. It seems somewhat obvious that one size doesn’t fit all.
A Christian congressman who spends fifty hours a week embroiled in the political battle for the life of the unborn, or defending the rights of the oppressed, can be running God’s errand. Yet it’s hard to apply the same balance of work and life to the institutional church’s pulpit ministry. Consequently, phrases like “the church becomes chiefly a political…”, and “the church is called to preach the gospel” should connote different meaning, with vastly different contextual demands, depending upon the respective callings of the many members of the one institutional church.
Back to Basics:
The institutional church is comprised of individuals who gather on the Lord’s Day and then scatter into the world to live out their respective callings before God. Consequently, the institutional church’s primary ministry on Sunday is not to reform the institutions of this world, or even reach the world for Christ, but to build up the saints in their worship of God. To that end, it is primarily on Sunday that the church’s members become equipped to fulfill their respective callings in the world, which includes (a) the mission work of the institutional church as well as (b) bringing biblical precepts to bear upon the ideologies of political, economic, and social institutions.
Institutional church members hardly can avoid interacting with, if not even being members of, other institutions such as family, civil government, and education. Accordingly, the institutional church’s members must be equipped to pull down the philosophical strongholds of the age lest they become (a) fideistic (b) impotently silent in her witness and / or (c) taken captive by the elementary principles of the world. To that end, there is a Christian duty to be able and willing to disarm the enemies of God, not just with kindness but a winsome word in season that has the power to tumble the institutional gods, if not at least silence their idolatrous worshippers.
Leaving aside how a minister of the gospel might train its congregation to think biblically in all areas of life (yet without hindering the church’s spirituality), as a general rule we might hope that the minister’s Sunday sermon would be heavier and more exhaustively focused on exegesis and indicatives, and perhaps lighter and more generally focused when it comes to personal application and imperatives regarding influencing the institutions of this world. That should be a given.
Admittedly, men like Jerry Falwell and D. James Kennedy likely lapsed into seasons of spiritual amnesia regarding their gospel-calling by turning their focus toward civil and political interests. Notwithstanding, such spiritual infidelity does not so neatly apply to the church’s members who on Monday morning scatter into the world in the service of the church militant. Indeed, when all is well, we can expect the church’s message on Sundays to look vastly different from its members’ message(s) the other six days of the week. Need it be even said that the minister who is preaching to his congregation the riches of the first fourteen verses of Ephesians has a different set of providential constraints and freedoms than the Christian plumber who is changing out a hot water tank, or the Christian businessman who accepts an invitation for a beer after work with his politically minded and irreligious colleagues?
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