There is None Like God

Remember Lenny LeBlanc’s song, “There is none like you”? Sing it with me: “There is none like
you…no one else can touch my heart like you do. I could search for all eternity long and find, there is
none like you.” We want to sing that song as people who know God, not as people like Pharaoh, who
see it but do not believe it.
The sixth plague followed the pattern of every third plague, with no warning, no announcement.
Pharaoh watched as Moses and Aaron did what God commanded, taking handfuls of soot or dust from
the kiln and throwing them into the air. The people of God knew what those kilns were all about. They
had been using them for years to bake bricks under forced labor. Now God takes some of that brick
dust and uses it to inflict pain on the people who had inflicted pain on Israel. The dust settled on every
person and every animal in Egypt and became boils. Listen, the mosquitoes and the flies were a pain,
but they were just a nuisance compared to these boils. God is turning up the heat and the pain.
This is the same affliction that Satan used to attack Job. Remember? God allowed Satan to test Job’s
faith and Satan first killed Job’s children and took his possessions. Job tore his robe and shaved his
head in mourning but he did not curse God. Instead, he worshiped him saying, “Naked I came from my
mother’s womb and naked shall I return. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the
name of the Lord.” Then Satan tells God he needs to intensify his test, saying “Skin for skin…All that a
man has he will give for his life.” God allows Satan to strike Job with boils. From the top of his head to
the soles of his feet, Job was covered with them. It was so bad that his wife said, “Do you still hold fast
to your integrity? Curse God and die.” Job did not listen to her. He trusted God while in such pain that
he took a piece of broken pottery to scrape the pus from the boils as he sat in ashes. He looked so
horrible that his friends did not recognize him from a distance. They were so horrified at Job’s
suffering they could not speak for seven days.
That is the level of pain and punishment we see the 6 th plague. Every Egyptian, including Pharaoh and
his magicians, and every animal was covered from head to toe with painful boils. The magicians could
not even stand before Moses because of them. Their magic did nothing for them because Satan is
unable to protect those who stand with him. In the wilderness years later, Moses warns the people of
God about the curses of disobedience. One of them was this: “The Lord will strike you with the boils of
Egypt, and with tumors and scabs and itch, of which you cannot be healed.” That tells me that the boils
that the Egyptians received in the 6 th plague may have been with them until they died.
Once again, this is just a tiny glimpse of the horror that will come upon all the wicked of the earth, as
recorded in Revelation. “So, the first angel went and poured out his bowl on the earth, and harmful
and painful sores came upon the people who bore the mark of the beast and worshiped its image.”
I know this for a fact. Pharoah, covered with boils and miserable, did not sing, “no one else can touch
my heart like you do.” But that is indeed what was happening. In this case, the Lord touched his heart
and made it harder. He strengthened Pharaoh’s resolve to disobey God. What a picture of hell on earth
as God gave this man over to the wicked desires of his heart. There is a horrifying phrase in Romans 1
where three times Paul wrote of the wicked, “God gave them up.” God gave them up to the lusts of
their hearts. He gave them up to dishonorable passions. Finally, he gave them up to a debased mind to
do what ought not to be done. At that point the end is fixed and destruction is inevitable, chosen by
the man or woman who lives life on their own terms, pursuing their own desires apart from God.
Oh God, keep my heart turned toward you!