Day Five - The Plague of the Frogs

Morning preparations before family wakes up: 

• 
  
  Place toy frogs all around – remember, they were everywhere! Plastic frogs will work as well as pictures of frogs.
• 
  
  I bought live frogs to bring out – we will probably name them Moses and Aaron.
• If you purchased frog gummies, serve these in the breakfast, lunch, and dinner
• Younger children might find it fun to hop around all day like frogs.

 Check on your play-dough heart. Is it as soft as it was yesterday? Isn’t it amazing how quickly a heart can start to harden? A few drops of water might revive the hardened dough just as our own hearts
must experience being washed in the Word of God each day. Time with God in the Word will reveal areas of our hearts that are growing cold and hard.

The blood is gone now even though the real plague lasted for seven days.
Ask your children how it felt to go without water. Remind them that the water of the Egyptians was BLOOD, not red fruit juice.

 Today instead of blood – there are FROGS!

 Read the TRUE STORY from Exodus 8:

"But if you refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite your whole territory with frogs.
"The Nile will swarm with frogs, which will come up and
• go into your house and
• into your bedroom and
• on your bed, and
• into the houses of your servants and on your people, and
• into your ovens and into your kneading bowls.

 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Say to Aaron, 'Stretch out your hand with your staff over the rivers, over the streams and over the pools, and make frogs come up on the land of Egypt.' “So Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt, and the frogs came up and covered the land of Egypt.

The magicians did the same with their secret arts, making frogs come up on the land of Egypt.

Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron and said, "Entreat the LORD that He remove the frogs from me and from my people; and I will let the people go, that they may sacrifice to the LORD." Moses said to Pharaoh, "The honor is yours to tell me: when shall I entreat for you and your servants and your people, that the frogs be destroyed from you and your houses that they may be left only in the Nile?"

Then he said, "Tomorrow." So he said, "May it be according to your word, that you may know that there is no one like the LORD our God.

"The frogs will depart from you and your houses and your servants and your people; they will be left only in the Nile." Then Moses and Aaron went out from Pharaoh, and Moses cried to the LORD concerning the frogs which He had inflicted upon Pharaoh. The LORD did according to the word of Moses, and the frogs died out of the houses, the courts, and the fields. So they piled them in heaps, and the land became foul.

But when Pharaoh saw that there was relief, he hardened his heart and did not listen to them, as the LORD had said.

***

We are commanded to put no other gods before Almighty God.
"You shall have no other gods before Me.” Exodus 20:3

God gave them over to frogs because the frog is something they worshiped – the frog was a FALSE god an IDOL:

The Egyptians worshiped all kinds of gods. Many of their gods and goddesses had names and were thought to have special talents. Isis was the name of their fertility goddess who helped women when they were giving birth. Hequet was another goddess they worshipped who helped midwives when the babies were being born. This goddess was represented as an image of a woman with the head of a frog.
The frog represented the fertility goddess, Isis, who was supposed to help women in childbirth.
(Greenleaf Guide)

“The ancient Egyptians saw thousands of frogs appear all along the Nile at certain times of the year. This appearance of the reptile came to symbolize fruitfulness and coming life.”
http://www.egyptvoyager.com/articles_godandgoddesses_goddessofchildbirth.htm

The frog was a sacred animal to the Egyptians because of what it symbolized. The Egyptians had frogs everywhere – in their houses, beds, at their tables. They had this animal with them all the time – while eating, drinking and sleeping.

Boiling Frog illustration - If you have a clear pot with a plastic frog, you might want to pretend to cook the frog as you share this simple illustration:

It is easy for sin to overtake our lives. Before we realize it, we have allowed things into our life that bring death rather than life. It is almost like cooking a frog. They say the easiest way to cook a frog is to place him in a pot of cold water. If he were to be submerged in boiling water at first, he would immediately jump out of the water, however, he is very comfortable cold water and doesn’t notice when the cold water starts to turn warm, and then hot and eventually to the boiling to the point of his death. What sin have we allowed into our lives – what sin are we comfortable living in now that bothered us before?

Teaching Points
1. God deals with a hard heart. How did God deal with Pharaoh’s hard heart?
2. God used their idols for judgment – they were killing babies the midwives delivered. They worshiped the frog – the idol of fertility and safe deliveries for midwives. They did not honor God as creator and destroyed his creation therefore; God gave them over to the idol of the frog.
3. Do you think the Egyptians worshiped their frog-god as much during the plague of the frogs?
4. The magicians could imitate God and do the same thing. Most gods of man are imitations of the real thing!
5. Sin will harden our hearts with our small choices as a frog slowly dies as cold water heats and begins to boil

Rather than worshipping the frog-god we must Fully Rely On God ... F.R.O.G.

PRAYER –
Ask God to reveal sin in your life. As He reveals sin through the washing of the Word – repent and turn away from that which can cause death (spiritual death) in your life. Are you putting ANY gods before Almighty God in your life?

SONG - Word of God Speak by Mercy Me