Beloved radio, friends, in the precious and the worthy name of the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior, we greet you. We welcome you to the study of God's precious word, which it is our great and holy privilege to bring each day. We thank God for his precious word. Thy word have I hidden mine heart, wrote the psalmist, that I might not sin against thee. For that end we pray the Holy Spirit will use the study we have on the word of God from day to day. We turn to the book of Exodus once again. Today we would like to read what is the fifth plague that God sent upon the land of Egypt a longer ago. We read in chapter nine, beginning at verse one through verse seven. Then the Lord sent unto Moses, go in unto Pharaoh and tell him, Thus said the Lord God of the Hebrews, Let my people go, that they may serve me. For if thou refuse to let them go, and will hold them still, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon thy cattle, which is in the field, upon the horses, upon the asses, upon the camels, upon the oxen, and upon the sheep, there shall be a very grievous moraine. And the Lord shall sever between the cattle of Israel and the cattle of Egypt. There shall nothing die of all that is the childrens of Israel. And the Lord appointed a set time, saying, Tomorrow the Lord shall do this thing in the land. And the Lord did that thing on the morrow. And all the cattle of Egypt died. But of the cattle of the children of Israel died not one. And Pharaoh sent, and behold, there was not one of the cattle of the Israelites dead. And the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and he did not. Let the people go. The preceding plague moved the mind and the heart of Pharaoh to a little degree. He offered to let the people go if they would only go a little way into the wilderness and come back. And then, when Moses demanded they be liberated entirely, he refused to let them go. Now once again, God continues in the conflict to visit with judgment. And in the fifth plague, a plague that was a disease upon all the capital of Egypt, we can recognize knowing something regarding the Egyptian pantheism of that day. The plague was aimed at the ox worship of Egypt. One of the great gods that they worshipped was a bull, the sacred bull which they called Apis. And they also worshipped not only the bull, They worshipped a ram, they worshipped a cow, they worshipped a goat, and all these animals were to then symbols of a deity. And the animal worship formed a large part of Egyptian idolatry. In one of the temples of one of the great pharaohs by the name of Ramesses II, the magnificence of a ceremony, a religious service, is described in which the bull played so prominent a part and is abundantly portrayed. In that ceremony, the pharaoh or the monarch, the king, is seen decorated with all the marks, the evidences of his great sovereign power. He is seated upon an elegant throne. There are two golden figures of one representing justice and truth, overshadowing with their wings. And then there is the emblem of a sphinx, which to them was the emblem of united wisdom and strength. And there is also the symbol, there is the figure of a lion, the symbol of courage, near the throne. And they seem to be, the sphinx and the lion, two protectors of the throne. And then in company with the king, with all of his royalty and grandeur, there were other royal persons. High priests among the priesthood of the Egyptians, the chiefs of the army, great singers and musicians and others that take part in the ceremony. Now let me describe very briefly the ceremony. The king arrives at a temple that was called the Temple of Horus, another god, and he approaches the altar. And he pours out offerings, probably, of wine and so forth, and he burns incense upon that altar. Now the statue of the God, which is a statue of a bull, the statue of the God is born by twenty-two priests upon a rich palaquin in the midst of sands and flowering branches. It's quite a notable ceremony. And then as they go toward the temple in this approach, the king proceeds on foot and is closely followed by a white bull. which is the living emblem of one of the gods. Another god that is called Horus or Ammon Ra. Now when they come to the altar, the god is invoked. A prayer is read in a loud voice. Birds are let loose to fly around. Other ceremonies are performed. And then the images of the king's ancestors. As well as the portrait of the king. They all stand together with the white bull. believing that this white bull is a god that has been made incarnate. And side by side, the bull and the king occupy the same position. And in this manner, the bull was acknowledged and worshipped as an incarnation of deity. Now, beloved, this was the worship of idolatry, believing that the gods were incarnated in this white bull. And of course, when you recognize the ceremony, the king was standing together with the bull. He was receiving worship too. For many of these pharaohs acknowledge and claim that they were gods, as well as receive the worship from an adoration of their people as such. Now God's judgment falls upon this god, the adoration and the worship of cattle and so on. The possessions of Egypt were great in the way of cattle. It was the emblem of wealth, and perhaps the pride of the rich in those possessions. But God's judgment falls upon the possessions of the wealth in Egypt. Now may I remind you of a fact. As we have read this judgment, we have noted that the judgment of Moraine The disease that God inflicted upon all the cattle of Egypt that they all died, never fell upon the cattle of the Israelites. The Israelites had their possessions preserved by God as well as for God. For when Israel went out of Egypt, as you may read in the later chapter, they took their cattle with them. And Moses had told Pharaoh, Not a hoof will be left behind when we leave Egypt. Now here is a lesson. A lesson I would like indeed to be reminding my fellow believers of, as well as any who may be unbelievers. Now the cattle represent the possessions of the Egyptians. The man of this world uses all of his possessions for himself. Not for God. And my beloved fellow believer, you and I should recognize that as those who belong to God, our possessions should be held for Christ and for his service. The man of the world who knows not the Lord Jesus, he'll only use what he has for his self-exaltation. I think of the words of the Lord Jesus that reminds us in Matthew chapter six. Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon the earth, where moth and rust can corrupt and feasts can break through and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven. I think of the parable he tells in chapter twelve of the Book of Luke concerning a rich man. Who said he had accumulated so much that he said, I must pull down my bonds and build greater, that I may store my goods, and say to my soul, Soul, eat, drink, and be merry. and thus enjoy what you have. But God said to that man, Thou fool, thy soul shall be required of thee this night. And to whom shall those possessions belong when you've gone? Now let's get the lesson. The obvious lesson, the possessions of materialism, by the man of the world, they are only used for his own selfish exaltation and interest. But God would preserve the possessions of the believer to be used, and for His honor and glory manifested. Now I would like to be reminding my hearers that in the last book of the Bible, chapter nine of the book of the Revelation and chapter twenty, I commend the reading of that. I'm not going to turn to it. I'll only mention it. But in Revelation chapter nine and verse twenty, In the last days when God will pour out His judgments upon the earth, as recorded in the book of the Revelation, men do not repent from their worship of their gods of gold, of silver, of copper, of stone, of iron, and of wood, whatever may be their material substance. They worship it to the end. And what happens to it? They leave it all, and God can take it away in a moment of time. The gods of the last days. I want to tell you very frankly, you don't have to go back to Egypt to find people worshipping gods of wood and stone or possessions. A man can even be a farmer that possesses many animals. And I tell you, the very stock that he owns can be his idols. A man may be the possessor of great and spacious lands and real estate, but the possessions that he has can be his idols. It may be his money in the bank. It can be many things of materialism upon the earth. My beloved, please let me state, Paul said in First Timothy six, we brought nothing into this world and it is certain that we can carry nothing out. I know my fellow believer to whom I address these words. I plead that you and I will hold the material things God blesses us with. Hold them all for Christ and His service in whatever way He leads us to glorify Him in the use of them. For there's one thing we can safely assume, we're not going to take that bank account to heaven. We're not going to take our real estate to heaven. We're not going to take the gold and the silver and whatever we may have materially to the heavens above. But oh, may we realize God desires the possessions of his people to be sanctified and set apart for his glory that we may have, when Jesus comes, great reward for the use of them for the honor of Christ. My friend, may I remind you If you are not saved, God's coming someday in judgment, then what you have won't mean a thing. Come to Christ before it's too late. Father, bless thy word. We pray in the Savior's name. Amen.