Va'era: Get Rid of Your Enemies

Torah Portion Afterthought: Understanding God's Incremental Victory

In this episode of the Perfect Body Podcast, Shira Chanté, Relationship Artist, delves into the weekly Torah portion of Va'era from the book of Exodus. Shirah provides an insightful afterthought on God's promises and deliverance, outlining the plagues God sent upon Egypt, highlighting the leadership of Moses and Aaron, and emphasizing the importance of patience and faith during oppression. Shirah relates these biblical events to contemporary struggles, encouraging listeners to trust in God's incremental process of getting rid of enemies and ensuring spiritual freedom.

00:00 Introduction to Perfect Body Podcast

01:03 Recap of Genesis and Introduction to Exodus

03:13 Moses and Aaron Confront Pharaoh

04:59 The Plagues Begin: Blood and Frogs

15:31 The Plagues Continue: Lice and Flies

18:43 God's Incremental Plan to Defeat Pharaoh

20:57 The Final Plagues and Pharaoh's Resistance

27:42 Conclusion and Encouragement

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Transcript

Hi everyone. It's Shira Chanté, relationship artist, healing hearts through the arts and helping God's people with relationships. Welcome to perfect body podcast, a Torah portion. Afterthought, where we are studying the Torah portions, the weekly Torah portions, according to the rabbinical schedule. Today, the Torah portion is actually Bo, which is my favorite, but because we're a Torah portion afterthought, we're actually going to be looking at Torah portion Bo next Shabbat.

So next Saturday, today we are looking at Torah portion Vaira and he appeared is what it means in English, Vaira. And we're in the book of Exodus. If you recall. From the last show, we started the book of Exodus. We completed Genesis successfully. Yay. And we learned a lot of biblical principles to help us in life.

Like how to make a vow to God. When should you make a vow to God, if ever, because we don't want to be foolish and not be able to fulfill. a vow, a promise to God. So it's better not to make one. We learned how to pray for what we need and to pray the promises that God has already given us. We learned that sometimes you might have to go through a struggle.

When you have a big dream, just like Joseph, we've learned so many things in Genesis. We learned about,  the. The origin of the Israelites and how they came to be father, Abraham, Abraham, father. Abraham has many sons. I don't know if anyone's heard of that song, but that's a song I sang in childhood and father Abraham, he's known as the father of faith, as it says in the book of Hebrews.

And he's the fourth person listed as far as the faith chapter goes, where they list the A bunch of people who had big, big, great, great faith. I think that's Hebrews chapter 11, if you want to take a look at that. And just how he just totally trusted God and God called it righteousness. So having righteousness is faith in God.

That God considers that righteousness when you believe him, when you trust him. And so we are now in the book of Exodus. Last week. We talked about let my people go, God is asking Pharaoh,  he's called Moses, Moses to be the deliverer of the Israelites, of the Hebrews from Egypt. They no longer need to be there.

It's time for them to go on, to move on and get their own land. The famine is over. That's why they went there initially. They've been there 400 years and now it's time to go. But Pharaoh does not want to let the Israelites go because they're, they're part of his economy. He's using them to build Egypt at a very low wage as slaves.

And so who,  of course he doesn't want to let them go. So now God has sent Moses and Aaron, his brother, to be the spokesperson to Pharaoh. Moses is like God to Aaron, telling him what to do. And then Aaron is speaking forth what God wants Pharaoh to do, which is to let his people go. So this week's This Torah portion by Era starts in the book of Exodus, chapter 6, verse 2.

I'm going to give you a little synopsis. I'm not going to go through the entire,  portion. You're welcome to read from chapter 6 to chapter 9 on your own. You will get so much out of it. And,  we are going to just summarize what's happening. So now,  Moses and Aaron are going before Pharaoh and God is delivering some plagues to,  get Pharaoh to let the children of Israel.

Go. And so,  the, name of this show is Get Rid of Your Enemies. So we're gonna get there. We're gonna get rid of your enemies. We're coming to that part. But first, I want to do the backstory so that we can get there. Now, okay. I need to see the book here.

So, the first thing that, that I wanted to bring up is In chapter six, verse nine, and Moses, this is Genesis Exodus chapter six, verse nine, and Moses spake so unto the children of Israel, and, but they hearkened not unto Moses for anguish of spirit and cruel bondage. So before that, let me just read the verse before that.

So, you know, what's going on. Verse eight, and I will bring you into the land concerning that which I did swear to give it to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. And I will give it you for an heritage. I am the Lord and the first seven, and I will take you to me for a people and I will be to you a God and ye shall know that I am the Lord, your God, which bringeth you out from the burdens of the Egyptians.

So remember in Genesis, God made. A promise to Abraham to give him the land of Canaan. And so he wants to keep that promise. God is going to keep that promise. And so he needs to bring the children of Israel out of Egypt so that they can go to Canaan land and, but the children of Israel, and this is what I want to just talk about for a moment.

They didn't want to hear it. They were so burdened. They were so much in bondage. They were so deep. They were so, uh, discouraged because ever since Moses came and started talking to Pharaoh, their struggle increased. And so now they don't even want to hear what Moses has to say. And so Moses is telling God, God, how am I going to get Pharaoh to listen to me?

Even the Hebrews, my own people won't listen to me. And that's. It's how it is sometimes when people get under heavy bondage, it's oppression. And it's just like, it's so much, it's so heavy that there's really nothing that there's no belief system anymore. There's no faith anymore to get free because of the heavy bondage.

It says because of the, the cruel bondage and the anguish of spirit anguish, like, Oh, You don't think you're going to get free, but God said he is going to deliver his people. He's going to take them out of Egypt and he is going to do just that. So Moses and Aaron, they continued on with a plan despite what the Hebrew says.

See, that's why you need a leader because sometimes. The people may not be listening, they may not be ready, but the leader is, the leader is the one who has the vision and who can bring the people out. It was Moses who said, despite what the Hebrews are feeling, the anguish of spirit, the cruel bondage and, and they're not feeling like they can go on and get through and actually get delivered out of Egypt.

I believe God and I'm going to continue on with the mission and that's. That's what a leader does. That is leadership. And so Moses goes to Pharaoh there are some plagues that God delivers unto Pharaoh to encourage Pharaoh to get rid of his people, to let his people go. And let's see here in.

The first thing that happened is the rod of Aaron that he was carrying. And I just want to mention here that Aaron is 83 years old. Moses is 80 years old. And there, this is when God called them to go speak to Pharaoh. Let me say that again. Aaron is 83, Moses is 80, and they are the ones who are called to be the leaders, to deliver the children of Israel out of slavery.

Out of Egypt. So you have no excuse if you're complaining about age or how old you might be, or, oh, you know, you haven't done what you need to do for the Lord. Well, you're not 80, are you? I don't think you're 80. Tell me if you're 80, let me know. So you have some time. I don't know how much time, maybe not.

It's a short time, but you have time. To get done what you need to get done. If Moses can do it at 80 years old, you can do it at your age, what the Lord is telling you to do. So now, let's continue. So the rods, the rods of that Aaron was carrying, a sign that they wanted to, what God wanted to show Pharaoh is Aaron would throw the rod on the ground and it would start, it would turn into a snake.

And that's what happened. The rod turned into a snake. Pharaoh hardened his heart because, guess what? His magicians did the same thing. They got their rods, and, ooh! They, their rods, Pharaoh's magicians rods turned into a snake also. However, this is the caveat. The rod of Moses Swallow up the rod of Pharaoh's magicians, but Pharaoh still hardened his heart.

God made sure Pharaoh's heart was hardened so that he can continue on and do the plays he needed to do to show Pharaoh that he is the Lord all throughout this. These chapters, chapter six through nine, God is saying, I am the Lord. He wants Pharaoh to know I am the Lord. Meaning, I'm over you, I have more power than you, and I will deliver my people.

And so then the first plague came, and that was blood. So God told Moses to go and to turn the water in the river, the Nile river is in Egypt, into blood. And Moses stretched out his hand upon the waters of Egypt. And they turned to blood once again, Pharaoh's magicians copied Moses and they were able to turn the water into blood as well.

And so Pharaoh hardened his heart and was like, eh, it's not, this is not so impressive. It's like, that's what's happening here. Like, okay, God can turn water to blood. Well, so can my people. My people can turn water to blood too, so he's not impressed by God yet. So now we come to the next plague, which is frogs, which is completely and totally gross.

I'm like, uh, I do not like frogs. And so, but. The whole land was filled with frogs. That was the next plague that Moses brought upon the people of Egypt for not letting the people of Israel go according to the power of God. Frogs invaded the land of Egypt. They were everywhere in the houses, everywhere.

And so Pharaoh called Moses and asked him to entreat God to get rid of the frogs. And here again, we had Pharaoh's magicians do the same thing as well, that they were able to get frogs and procure frogs or make frogs as well. So Pharaoh's still not impressed, but he is asking Moses to get rid of the frogs and he's lying and saying, Oh, I'll let you go.

I'll let you go. But he really doesn't let the children go. Once the frogs. Once Moses goes and prays to the Lord, and the frogs die, all the frogs die. They're left in the city, or in the country of Egypt, and the whole Egypt started to smell, stink, because of the frogs. Still, Pharaoh would not let the people of Israel go.

This is how the enemy is and see we're building up. I want to relate this to maybe some enemies in your life. Some people who are coming against you, your adversaries, people who don't like you, people who are trying to stop you from doing the will of God in your life. This is what we are making a parallel to because they're God wants you to do, but then there's going to be some opposition and some adversaries, some enemies.

That's why I call this, get rid of your enemies. And the way to do that is with the power of God. What I'm showing you here is you're not going to be able to get rid of your enemies by yourself. And that's okay. Cause you're not supposed to, because you have a God who is mighty and that is. His job, using you, you just have to follow and do what God tells you to do and God will handle the enemies.

And so we see we're building up and we're coming to a point where Pharaoh is starting to get a little uneasy, but his hard heart is still there. So the next plague, the third plague is lice and the lice is all over the city and It's, lice is gross, gets in your hair and then you have to wash it.

I've had that experience before. You have to put all this gook in your hair and kill the lice. And it's just disgusting. And I don't know if you've ever had lice before. Yeah. We stayed at a bad hotel once and it wasn't clean and we ended up with lice, gross. And I was like, why is my head itchy?

Why is my So, but there was lice all over the country of Egypt, everywhere. And it says in Genesis chapter eight, verse 19, hear this, then the magician said unto Pharaoh, this is the finger of God and Pharaoh's heart was hardened. And he hearkened not unto them as the Lord had said. So let me go up a verse verse 18 and the magicians did so with their enchantments to bring forth lice But they could not so there were lice upon man and upon beast So now this is the first plague where the magicians couldn't copy God So like so they told Pharaoh this is the finger of God This is really God because we can't do this.

We can't we have no power to do this This this has to be God. This is what? Pharaoh's own magicians told him that Pharaoh's heart was hardened. This is God's will that Pharaoh's heart was hardened because he wanted to deliver the children of Israel with an outstretched arm, a mighty hand, and really show Pharaoh who's boss.

Okay. So the fourth plague is flies. And so the entire country of Egypt is filled with flies. I believe it was so much that it was dark. It felt like it was dark or was that the lice, but it seemed like it was dark in the land because there were so many, there were swarms of flies. It says in verse 24, Exodus chapter eight.

And the Lord did so, and there came a grievous swarm of flies into the house of Pharaoh and into his servants houses and into all the land, Egypt. The land was corrupted by reason of the swarm of flies. And so this, all of these plagues are destroying Egypt. The, it says, I think it was some crops are being failed because of the flies.

And the land was stank because of the fraud. So all of these plagues are doing what God needs them to do and destroying the land of Egypt. And so he's making Pharaoh weaker and weaker and weaker. And so this is how God works in our life. We were looking at this as a parallel of how God gets rid of our enemies, how God gets rid of our adversaries, how God gets rid of those who are opposing us so that we can be free to do the will of the Lord.

It's in increments. It's incremental. Have you ever thought, God, what is happening? You said you were going to get rid of this person for me. I know I've had some people bother me and I'm lifting this up to the Lord and the Lord assures me that this person is going to be destroyed and I'm like, why are they still here?

You know? I'm like, what, what's taking so long? I know I'm not the only one who thinks that way. Come on, like, come on, Lord. You know, when are you going to kill them, Lord?

Okay. So, it's incremental. It's incremental. The damage. He wants to damage our enemies. He wants to take. He wants to bring them to their knees. He wants to utterly destroy them because they're coming against You, they're coming against me. They're coming against the children of Israel. And that's a no, no.

He's like, I, God's will will be done. That's the thing. God's will will be done. There's nothing that can stop God's will. And so Pharaoh is standing in the stead of a promise he gave. The Hebrews, he said he was giving them their own land, so they don't need to be in Egypt anymore. They need to go, Pharaoh needs to let his people go.

Let my people go, God said, but Pharaoh is being stubborn, and so God is going to slowly work on Pharaoh's heart by destroying his land, the country of Egypt. And even more than that, as we'll, we're going to see. So the next plague is the beast. This is chapter nine, and this is where I want to get to. Oh, there's one.

There's something I want to talk about in Genesis chapter eight. Okay. Hello everyone. Thank you for joining. And this is Genesis chapter eight, verse 28. And Pharaoh said, I will let you go that ye may sacrifice to the Lord your God in the wilderness. Only ye shall not go very far away and treat for me. So this is when the flies were in the land.

That's the last plague we talked about. The flies are in the land. So Pharaoh was saying, Okay, Moses, I need you to get rid of these flies and I will let you go. But don't go very far. And I just wanted to bring this up because isn't this how people are in your life? Oh, okay. You can only go this far. Okay.

You can only get that job. You can only have this amount of pay. You can only do this much. They want to put limits on you and put boundaries on you that are not God given. They want to keep you. In a place subjugated or to them, or they just don't want you to rise up. They don't want you to go any further.

You can go, but not that far. You can get a raise, but only a little bit. You can get a better job, but it's not that much better. But yeah, they don't want you to do. More, they don't want you to do the will of God for your life. That's how the enemy works. And this is what Pharaoh was saying here.

You can go, but not that far. No, you can't have your own land. Like I do. Of course not. Egypt is mine. Of course, you're not going to have your own land. You don't think you're going to have your own land. Do you? You're not like me. I'm Pharaoh. You see, this is how, this is how the enemy operates. They don't want you to be uplifted.

But God. It says the land of Canaan belongs to the children of Israel. He's already promised it to them and they need to be out of the land of Egypt. So now the beasts are going to die. God tells Moses to kill the beasts. And so that's all of their I'm going to read , Exodus chapter nine, verse three, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon thy cattle, which is in the field upon the horses.

Upon the asis, upon the camels, upon the oxen, and upon a sheep, there shall be a very grievous mora, and the Lord shall sever between the cattle of Israel and the cattle of Egypt, and there shall nothing die of all that is the children of Israels.

You see, this is a process. This is how God gets rid of our enemies. He wants to totally leave them in desolation. So that in my thought. This is my thinking, because when you go, he doesn't want them to be able to rise back up and come after you, even though we're going to see, we're going to see what happens, but he doesn't want them to have the power over you to come back over you to come back and try to fight against you.

And so he's slowly destroying Egypt. He's slowly destroying Pharaoh in a major way. He's killing off their cattle. What are they going to eat? What are they going to use to plow? They have no more oxen. How are they going to plow the ground? So you see, this is a process. So don't worry. I'm trying to get you to understand that if someone's bothering you and God is your God and he's promised you to fight for your fight against your enemies and so that you can do what he has called you to do, it's happening.

It's happening incrementally. Okay. Just like he did here with the children of Israel, the sixth plague boils on man and beast. So now their body is affected. Now he's starting to affect them. And God sent Moses and Exodus chapter nine, verse eight. And the Lord said unto Moses and unto Aaron, take to you handfuls of ashes of the furnace and let Moses sprinkle it towards the heaven and the sight of Pharaoh.

And it shall become small dust in all the land of Egypt, and it shall be a boil breaking forth with blames upon man and upon beast throughout all the land of Egypt. And they took ashes of the furnace and stood before Pharaoh, and Moses sprinkled it up toward heaven, and it became a boil breaking forth with blames upon man and upon beast.

And this is verse 11 what I wanted to get to. And the magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boils, for the boil was upon the magicians and upon all the Egyptians. And the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he hearkened not unto them, as the Lord has commanded. Spoken on to Moses. So now the magicians are gone.

They are, they could not stand before Moses. So here we go. God has gotten rid of the enemies. He gets rid of our enemies. Pharaoh's still there. Now we're going to get to Pharaoh, but you see how it's incremental. He got rid of Pharaoh's helpers, his magicians. The magicians could no longer stand. Before Moses, because of the boils that were on their body.

So he got rid of Pharaoh's defense system. You see, it's like getting rid of a country's Navy or getting rid of a country's air force or army. He's doing it little by little destroying. Pharaoh. And this is how God works in our life. And I wanted to make that parallel. So as you can see, God is working. He knows what you're going through.

He knows the people who are bothering you, who are trying to keep you in slavery and bondage to them, trying to control you and manipulate you and do witchcraft and all of these things against you, God knows this. And he sees this and he is working in your. Instead on your behalf to get rid of them, but it may not be right away all at once.

It may be he's working out his plan because he's a big God and he knows exactly what to do to deliver you from the hand of your enemies. So get rid of your enemies by praying to the Lord. Following him and doing what he says to do and not worrying about the process, but being patient as God works out the plan.

Don't be anguished in your spirit. Don't, you may be going through something, maybe you think it's cruel bondage like the children of Israel. They didn't even want to hear Moses. They're like, Oh, don't talk about freedom. We'll never be free. They thought. Well, I'm here to tell you, you will be free.

He whom the Son sets free is free indeed. That's what it says in the Bible, where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. So if you have the Spirit of the Lord in you, you have liberty, you have freedom, and that's It's only going to manifest in time. It's only going to be a little time. Like I said, he's getting rid of your enemies incrementally, step by step by step so that they are utterly destroyed and cannot ever come against you again.

That's wonderful. So you don't have, they won't rise up against you again, right? He has Egypt and all of the history. Have the world ever risen up against the children of Israel? No, they've never been that powerful ever again. Not until this day, 2025, they they're, they're still a nation, but they're not, they haven't ever been that powerful to enslave the children of Israel.

Thank the Lord. So God's victory is sure. It is permanent. He has a permanent victory for you, for me, for everyone listening. And I thank you, Lord God, for bringing these, your children here to listen to your word and Exodus Torah portion by era Genesis chapters six through nine, Lord God, help us to have patience as you work out your plan in our life to free us.

any bondage that we may be in. It could be the bondage of drugs. It could be the bondage of alcohol. It could be the bondage of poverty or lack, or it could be the bondage of a bad relationship. Whatever bondage we're in, Lord God, we ask you to deliver us so that we can be free to serve you and free to worship you.

And give us the wisdom to wait on you and to follow your plan and to not be anguished in spirit. In the name of Jesus, Amen. I pray. All right. Wow. I went a little longer tonight. Okay. Thank you once again. Next week, we're going to look at Bo! I love Bo! Okay, remember to love God, love you, and love people.