One More Night with the Frogs

There was a devotional I did this morning. Sometimes—I always tell you that sometimes... I’m making a confession here—sometimes I set aside some time in the morning and get out a little book of daily devotionals I have called The Upper Room. And this morning I came across a devotional whose title caught my attention, and I wanted to share it with you. That day’s devotional was called “One More Night with the Frogs.” That’s right: “One More Night with the Frogs.”

Go with me to the book of Exodus, chapter 8. I think some people are looking at me like, “Hmm... Where is this going?” I’m going to “One More Night with the Frogs.” I think this was also a sermon I heard a long time ago from Dante Gebel. I don’t know how many of you know Dante Gebel, but Dante Gebel preached about this—whew—a long time ago; that’s when I heard it. But this morning I came across that devotional, which is for today, and I don’t know—when I read the text, there were several things in it that poked me like this. Not poked me, sorry—things that stood out, and I’m going to share them with us today.

It says in verse 1, “Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Go into Pharaoh’s presence and tell him, “Thus says the Lord: Let my people go, so that they may serve me. And if you refuse to let them go, behold, I will plague all your territory with frogs. And the river will bring forth frogs, which will come up and enter your house, the bedroom where you sleep, and onto your bed, and into the houses of your servants and your people, and into your ovens and your kneading troughs....”’”

What is a kneading trough? I was a little lost. It’s like a pot, right? Okay, like a pot. Okay.

Verse 4: “‘...and the frogs will come up on you, on your people, and on all your servants.’ And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Tell Aaron, “Stretch out your hand with your staff over the rivers, streams, and ponds, so that frogs may come up over the land of Egypt.”’ Then Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt, and the frogs came up and covered the land of Egypt”—a lot of emphasis on the land of Egypt—“and the sorcerers did the same with their enchantments and brought frogs up over the land of Egypt....”

I mean, what kind of minds did these sorcerers of Pharaoh have? Instead of doing the opposite and removing the frogs, they brought in more frogs. I mean, that makes me... I’ll get to that in a moment.

“...Then, verse 8, Pharaoh called Moses and Aaron and said to them, ‘Pray to the Lord to take all these frogs away from me and my people, and I will let your people go so that they may offer sacrifices to the Lord.’ And Moses said to Pharaoh”—this is where the key lies—“‘Be so kind as to tell me when I should pray for you, your servants, and your people, so that the frogs may be removed from you and your houses and remain only in the river.’ And Pharaoh said....”

Let’s say it together: and Pharaoh said... Who would ever think of saying, “Tomorrow”? I would have told him, “Look, right now—let them leave now.” Why would you want to spend an entire night with the frogs and have them leave tomorrow morning? Who could possibly think that way? But look at this. Please don’t make me laugh; I want to concentrate. Look at this: that phrase is very interesting. I think we can identify the frogs as anything that keeps us stuck. A frog is an ugly thing, although there are children who pick up frogs and kiss them, and I don’t know whether you’ve seen pictures like that. But a frog is something ugly, something disgusting—I mean, unless it’s a Puerto Rican coquí. All right, that’s different. A coquí is more tolerable. But a frog is a frog: slimy. Can you imagine waking up one day and finding about five frogs in your bed? Or opening the refrigerator and suddenly a frog jumps out? Or going to the bathroom and suddenly a frog comes out of the toilet or something like that? Can you imagine such a thing? That’s disgusting. That’s disgusting. Look at Gloria. Gloria is looking like, “Pastor Omar, what are you talking about?” That’s disgusting.

Why tomorrow? Hey, Lucy, come here and finish the sermon yourself. Look at that; it’s interesting. They got used to having the frogs for one night. “Oh, I can deal with the frogs for one night. That’s nothing. I’ll step on them and crush them.” But look at this, my brothers and sisters: those ugly things that we don’t like, that stink, that disgust us, are very often things within us. And you can define that in any way you like. Sometimes they are character traits that stink, character traits that make us ugly, and you’re like... “Why do I have to keep dealing with this?”

People who suffer from some kind of addiction, too—that is another way these frogs can manifest themselves. People who struggle with an addiction to cigarettes, or drinking, or going from party to party and bar to bar, and you name it. Exactly. They say, “Yes, I’m going to stop drinking tomorrow. I’m going to quit smoking tomorrow. Oh, I won’t go to another party—tomorrow. Uh, no, I won’t look at a woman lustfully anymore—yes, tomorrow. Of course.” So many things, so many things. “I won’t say another bad word starting tomorrow. Not another bad word will come out of my mouth.” Diets begin not only on the first day of the year as a new resolution; they also begin tomorrow.

“Tomorrow I’ll go out and exercise.” And then tomorrow it rains, and you don’t go out to exercise. “Look, I’m going to be responsible and call people.” Do you know when? Tomorrow. “Oh, I’m going to start praying.” Tomorrow. Although praying is not a frog. No, no, no—praying is not a frog. The frog is not praying. Fasting too—not fasting can be another frog. What else? What else can we identify as a frog? “Oh, I’m going to pay off all my debts tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll start saving money—tomorrow. I’m going to find a financial analyst to help me pay my debts.” When? Tomorrow. “Oh, I’m going to tithe tomorrow. I’m going to call my grandmother, who has been calling me for a long time, but I don’t answer her calls.” When? Tomorrow. Do you see the idea? Do you see the idea?

What does that well-known saying tell us? Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today. Let me continue reading the text, because something very interesting remains. I mean, today’s devotional stopped there at verse 10, but I kept reading and discovered something very interesting. It says:

“...and he said, ‘Tomorrow.’ And Moses answered, ‘It will be done according to your word, so that you may know that there is no one like the Lord our God. And the frogs will leave you, your houses, your servants, and your people, and they will remain only in the river.’ Then Moses and Aaron left Pharaoh’s presence, and Moses cried out to the Lord concerning the frogs: ‘God, look, see if you can please get these frogs out of here.’ And the Lord did according to the word of Moses. Look at this: ‘...and the frogs died in the houses, the farmsteads, and the fields. They gathered them into heaps and’”—look at this—“‘the land stank.’”

Listen, I don’t know, but that phrase got me. Do you know why that phrase grabbed me? Because many times, when we begin dealing with those frogs and start looking for a way to kill them, it can be a process that stinks a great deal. And many times, when we begin to smell that bad odor, we get intimidated, step aside, and leave it there. Right? Sometimes that is our tendency. When something stinks—if the smell makes someone nauseous—what are they going to say? “You deal with it; I can’t.” Or, “You go clean it up.” Because sometimes we don’t even clean it up; we leave it lying there for the sun to consume on its own—for the sun, the air, the rain, the dew, and things like that to consume it on their own. But meanwhile, the stench remains.

And I believe, my brothers and sisters, that this process of getting rid of the frogs must be a very intentional process. I believe we must pray to God to give us strong stomachs so that we can endure those bad smells.

Do you know how those bad smells can often manifest themselves in life? They were talking earlier about diet and exercise. Do you know how that bad smell can begin to manifest itself? When you begin exercising after perhaps not doing it for years, what is the first thing you will have to deal with? The aches. The fatigue, the stiffness in your body—and in the first week, you quit and never exercise again. The thing stank so badly to you that you left it there.

The same thing happens with dieting. You begin to feel skinny, so tiny, tiny, eating a little salad with little tomatoes and a little egg and a very small, very lean chicken breast. Then suddenly you see me beside you starting to eat a really greasy pizza, and it’s like Omar’s pizza looks the way Gloria does right now, and she wants to snatch the pizza away from me. Then my pizza will turn into that stench that distracts you from what you truly need to do.

When you begin dealing with those frogs that are deeply embedded in you, which cause so much disgust—but when you begin killing those frogs and truly encounter those aspects of your character that are deeply rooted in you—you say something like, “Wow, this is worse than I thought. I thought this was something very superficial, but it goes deeper.” No, but I can still hear. As long as there is life in the battery, I’ll keep talking. Tomorrow I’ll change the microphone battery. Thank you for the effort. Now this microphone is beginning to stink.

But look at this, my brothers and sisters, because I believe God intentionally wants us to deal with those frogs in our lives, and there will be times when those frogs begin to stink. When God begins giving us the strength and authority to know how to destroy them and eliminate them from our lives, we will often have to deal with situations that will cause pain, disgust, and discomfort, and we’ll be like, “I don’t want to deal with that now. I was very comfortable the way I was before.”

That was Pharaoh’s problem. When he said, “Tomorrow,” it was like saying, “Look, no, not now. There are a lot of things...” Maybe it was time for him to have some tea, and he preferred drinking tea in the company of a frog to drinking tea with his table completely clean. And I believe, my brothers and sisters, that very often that tomorrow keeps turning into another tomorrow, and the day after, and the next day, and the next day, while we keep lingering around—how do you say that in Spanish? Lingering, sort of going around and around the issue—and it stays there, it stays there, and we don’t truly deal with what needs to be dealt with. It takes courage, my brothers and sisters. It takes a genuinely committed spirit to cast aside those things so that they stop stinking, stop bothering us, and stop making us uncomfortable, so that we can then truly open ourselves to what God wants to do in our lives.

Obviously, in this story the frogs were one plague among the many others God sent. Do you know why? Because of Pharaoh’s stubbornness. And sometimes our frogs turn into many other plagues because we are stubborn and refuse to open ourselves to God’s dealings in our lives. And we are fighting and struggling with the same thing, the same thing, the same darn thing this way and that, from one side to the other, and we remain there, there, and there.

Sometimes, without meaning to—meaning to all along—we ourselves allow and draw those plagues into our lives. But God’s intention is completely different. God’s intention throughout this story is to bring freedom to a people, to free a people from slavery, to free a people from the oppressive situation in which they found themselves. And isn’t that what God wants to do in our lives? To bring freedom to our hearts, to enable us to feel that we are living a truly abundant life in accordance with what he wants for us. But then we find ourselves at this crossroads and begin weighing things up: “Okay, do I keep this frog, or do I choose what God has for me?”

I don’t know whether you’re following me, my brothers and sisters, but this is something very profound. I’m not saying this is true in your case, but perhaps you know people who are very accustomed to living with their frogs—and it stinks, it stinks. And I believe that both personally and in our service and ministry to others, we must be very attentive to those areas where frogs may be hidden. We must not wait until tomorrow to deal with them, but begin today, right now, and start saying, “Look, Lord, take these things out. Let’s kill these things. Even if it stinks for a while, the simple fact is that we are going to remove them and burn them, bury them, or whatever it takes. But once that smell is gone, what will remain are the fragrances of God, so to speak—the glory of God, what God wants to do in our lives.”

But this does not come easily or naturally to us. We cannot do it in our own strength; we cannot do it through our own courage or effort. This requires an intervention from God. Obviously, here in this story Moses had to intercede so that God himself would remove that entire plague from that region. And right now Jesus intercedes for us so that God’s purposes may be fulfilled in our lives and so that, by the power of God, we may rid ourselves of those imperfections within us—with the help of other brothers and sisters who can pray for us, advise us, lend us a hand, help me carry that bag of frogs, and remove them from my life completely.

God works in all those ways, my brothers and sisters, but the key here in this joke about tomorrow has to do with that aspect of stubbornness that so often blinds us—stubbornness, clumsiness, ignorance—but in this case we see the stubbornness of a king, of a Pharaoh who perhaps thought he could deal with it on his own, but ultimately realized that he could not. And look, I do not know how you define stubbornness, but stubbornness can keep us from what God truly wants to do in our lives. And there are times when it does so in subtle and hidden ways; we often become so accustomed to those things, and yet those very things are preventing the flow of God from truly running in us and through us to bless others as well.

So, look, I told you that I was going to finish in ten minutes, and I kept my end of the bargain. But I want to take a moment to pray about this. I mean, I am not asking you to confess whether or not you have frogs in your life; that is not it. But I want us to pray, my brothers and sisters, because perhaps the biggest frog we deal with is stubbornness. Good grief, I am calling you stubborn; Lord, forgive me. But do you understand where I am going with this?

There are times when the biggest frog we deal with is our own foolishness. Thank you. There are times when we blind ourselves to things that seem very commonplace in our lives, and yet those very things are sometimes what limit us, stop us, and rob us of what God wants to do in us.

That is to say, I encourage you tonight to pray together with this in mind. Whatever there may be in me, first of all, may God give me the discernment to identify it; and once I identify it, may God then give me the courage to know how to confront it and get rid of it, even if it is a process that takes time, even if the bad smell lingers. May he give us, so to speak, the inner strength we need, whether we have to clean with bleach and spray Febreze into the air to clear away the bad odors. But may God give us the resolve and consistency not to wait until tomorrow to do something, but for me to begin today and continue tomorrow, and the day after that, and keep going, and so on and so forth.

That is what God wants to do in our lives. Once we manage to do it in our own lives, we then become living testimonies to other people around us—other people who may be dealing with other frogs, and who knows, perhaps even more frogs than you had—so that God may then use us like that Moses, placing us in the middle to intercede for God to remove that other person’s frogs, or to help that other person get rid of their frogs as well.

So, my brothers and sisters, I invite you—I did not intend to deliver such a lengthy message, but you understood the idea, right? It is not tomorrow; it is today. It is now. It is this very second. Whatever it may be, my brothers and sisters, put a first and last name to whatever little frog may be around there bothering you. Even if its song is as beautiful as the coquí’s, it is still a little frog.

In the name of Jesus, Lord, we draw near to you. Father, there are times when those frogs are so deeply hidden within us that we do not notice them, and yet they are hiding in there. There are times when those frogs are singing very loudly, and we know they are there, but we do not even dare to catch them and throw them out; and that is why we need an intervention from you, Lord.

Father, I ask that you give every one of my brothers and sisters who are here today, and even those listening to us over the Internet, the power, the grace, and the resolve to know how to deal with those very ugly areas in our lives, Lord, and to rid ourselves of every one of them, Lord. Even if in the process we have to face bad odors, even if in the process we have to face difficult situations, even if in the process we may have to deal with a sense of shame or guilt, Lord, may all of that work toward our fulfilling your purpose in our lives.

Your Word says that all things work together for good in the lives of those who love you, Lord, in the lives of those who are seeking to have your purposes fulfilled among us. So, Lord, right now, here in the company of every one of my brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give us that wisdom and that discernment to know how to deal with those imperfections within us, Lord.

Father, the truth is that perhaps I do not know the full purpose for which I am communicating this message, but I know there is something in it, Lord, and you know every one of the people who are here listening to and receiving this word right now. So I only plead with you that your Word fulfill the purpose for which it is being sent right now, Lord. Perhaps they do not identify with this matter of the frogs, but they do identify with the idea of putting things off until tomorrow, Lord—things about which perhaps you are seeking to have us make a decision right now, today, in a decisive way, Lord, and not keep putting things off until tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that, Lord. Rather, today you are seeking to have us make a firm decision for you, Lord. Look, even for that, Father, I plead with you, Lord Jesus, to help us discern your voice, to help us discern your voice, Lord, so that we may know how to respond to your dealings in our lives.

And you know what? Something occurs to me now. This was something I was reading about this morning, and it is the simple fact that there may be people who need to be reconciled directly with God, people who need to reconcile their lives with God in a very direct, very intentional way, people who may keep saying, “Look, you know what? Tomorrow I am going to keep doing my own thing,” and we keep putting off that restoration of a relationship with God. I do not know whether this is your situation tonight, or perhaps that of someone watching me over the Internet. Perhaps you need to reconcile your life with the Lord, but there is a frog there that keeps making you say, “Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.” Look, today, as the Word says, today is the day of salvation; today is the day when we can be reconciled with the Lord, when we can begin again. Today is the moment when God’s mercies are made new, and we can once again begin a life of close relationship with God. So, if that is something that reaches your heart, wherever you may be, I only ask right now that this word reach you and fulfill its purpose.

Lord, if right now, today, you are touching a life that needs to be reconciled with you, Lord, or a life that needs to accept you for the first time and surrender completely to you for the first time, Lord, I ask that this word reach each one of their hearts right now, and that through your Holy Spirit you bring the conviction of your presence into that life right now, Lord. May that man, that woman, that young person, that elderly person who is receiving this word right now, Lord, be able to make the decision to be reconciled with you, to restore their communication with you, to restore their love for you, to ask your forgiveness for their failings, Lord, and to seek a way to begin again under your grace and under your mercy, Lord. I bless that person, Lord, wherever they may be, whether here in this room or over the Internet, if they are watching me now. And I believe it to be so: right now there is a person being reconciled with you, Lord. We bless that person and declare the covering of your Holy Spirit over them, Lord Jesus, right now.

We thank you for this time, Lord. Thank you because your Word never comes back empty, Lord, but fulfills the purpose for which you send it. We thank you, Lord, in the name of Jesus. Amen and amen. Thank you, Lord. Thank you.