The Stanking

When you study Moses in the book of Exodus, an interesting part of the story is the plagues that came upon Egypt.  It may seems as you read it that just one menacing thing comes after another.  That is true.  All the plagues were, at least, menacing.   However, there is a much greater message that Egypt got from the plagues that we too often miss today.  With every plague God was attacking, not only their lifestyle, but their false religions.  For instance, they saw the Nile as the lifeblood of the nation.  Economically and in many other ways, it was.  For instance, I learned the other day from a historical account in a 6th grade reading book something else about the Nile.  It is thought to be the mode of transportation of the large limestone rocks that make up the pyramids.  They would bring those large "bricks" down the Nile to the location of the building of the pyramid tombs.   The Nile was at the center of all Egypt did.  The Nile was so valuable to them that they worshiped it.  When God turned it to blood, He was attacking their "lifeblood" or the Nile, in which they worshiped. 
Another example is the gnats.  The gnats were significant because they made everything unclean and the Egyptians were not able to carry out their pagan, religious practices because everything was contaminated by gnats.  He interrupted their pagan worship with filth. 
The whole onslaught of the frogs is also significant.  Frogs were not thought of in a negative sense.  As a matter of fact when the floods came, the frogs came out.  The Egyptians knew that without the floods, the land would not be fertile.  Therefore, they saw the frogs as a promise of fertility. 
They even formed a goddess from the image of a frog.  HEKT was a mythical goddess that had the body of a woman but the head of a frog and she represented resurrection and fertility.   You have to wonder if she was seen in the same light after the following episode (www.lifejournal.cc):  And the LORD did according to the word of Moses. The frogs died out in the houses, the courtyards, and the fields. ¹⁴ And they gathered them together in heaps, and the land stank.-- Exodus 8:13-14 
In other words, HEKT stank or it stank like HEKT!  Whatever!  It should have been a clear message to serve no other god, but the real God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  It should have been a message to Pharoah to let the people go and worship.  As a matter of fact, he should have followed them to worship.  However, he didn't and the trouble continued.
Let's let nothing in our lifestyle, custom, or habit come in the way of worshiping God wholeheartedly today!  Celebrate the Lord!