In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1 tells us that God’s creation was good. In this message, we look at the impact of sin on creation and we look forward to the new work of creation that Jesus does. At the end of the Bible, the Lord will bring full restoration to his creation.
Author: the Josh Benner Blog
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Sermon: Crossing the Red Sea. Exodus 14
5 When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, the mind of Pharaoh and his servants was changed toward the people, and they said, “What is this we have done, that we have let Israel go from serving us?” 6 So he made ready his chariot and took his army with him, 7 and took six hundred chosen chariots and all the other chariots of Egypt with officers over all of them.
8 And the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and he pursued the people of Israel while the people of Israel were going out defiantly. 9 The Egyptians pursued them, all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots and his horsemen and his army, and overtook them encamped at the sea, by Pi-hahiroth, in front of Baal-zephon.
10 When Pharaoh drew near, the people of Israel lifted up their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians were marching after them, and they feared greatly. And the people of Israel cried out to the Lord. 11 They said to Moses, “Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt?
12 Is not this what we said to you in Egypt: ‘Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.” 13 And Moses said to the people, “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. 14 The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.”
15 The Lord said to Moses, “Why do you cry to me? Tell the people of Israel to go forward. 16 Lift up your staff, and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it, that the people of Israel may go through the sea on dry ground.
17 And I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they shall go in after them, and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host, his chariots, and his horsemen. 18 And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I have gotten glory over Pharaoh, his chariots, and his horsemen.”
19 Then the angel of God who was going before the host of Israel moved and went behind them, and the pillar of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them, 20 coming between the host of Egypt and the host of Israel. And there was the cloud and the darkness. And it lit up the night without one coming near the other all night.
21 Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided. 22 And the people of Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry ground, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left. 23 The Egyptians pursued and went in after them into the midst of the sea, all Pharaoh’s horses, his chariots, and his horsemen. 24 And in the morning watch the Lord in the pillar of fire and of cloud looked down on the Egyptian forces and threw the Egyptian forces into a panic, 25 clogging their chariot wheels so that they drove heavily.
And the Egyptians said, “Let us flee from before Israel, for the Lord fights for them against the Egyptians.”
26 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea, that the water may come back upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots, and upon their horsemen.” 27 So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to its normal course when the morning appeared. And as the Egyptians fled into it, the Lord threw the Egyptians into the midst of the sea. 28 The waters returned and covered the chariots and the horsemen; of all the host of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea, not one of them remained.
29 But the people of Israel walked on dry ground through the sea, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left.
30 Thus the Lord saved Israel that day from the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. 31 Israel saw the great power that the Lord used against the Egyptians, so the people feared the Lord, and they believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses.
Prayer
Our gracious and heavenly Father,
We again come to you in a Spirit of praise and rejoicing. Lord, we continue to pray for our nation and all of the division that we face. Let us continue to honor you with our lives, our thoughts, our deeds. Let us live as living sacrifices to you O Lord.
We pray that you would bless our time in your word.
In Jesus’ name, amen.
Introduction
We’ve actually covered this passage before. About a year and a half ago.
And I had asked myself “should we do it again?”
And for two main reasons, I decided to.
Perhaps most obviously, we’ve been talking about the Exodus and it makes no sense to skip over the most significant event of the entire book of Exodus, when God actually frees the Israelites from Egypt by parting the waters of the Red Sea.
And although we’ve looked at this passage before, it’s still helpful because it’s God’s word. And a good knife cuts more than once.
And with that very limited introduction, we’re going to get right into our passage this morning. And the plan is to cover the crossing of the Red Sea and close by talking about how that points us to the gospel.
And the main idea I want to make this morning: God delivers his people from slavery to freedom.
In chapter 12, God had brought the most severe plague against the Egyptians when he struck dead the firstborn of all the people in Egypt. When that happened, Pharaoh seemed to finally tell the Israelites to leave.
Fast forward to Exodus 14, and the Israelites are being led out of Egypt, but Pharaoh has decided to pursue them.
Now we saw numerous plagues where Pharaoh
Beginning in verse 5:
5 When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, the mind of Pharaoh and his servants was changed toward the people, and they said, “What is this we have done, that we have let Israel go from serving us?” 6 So he made ready his chariot and took his army with him, 7 and took six hundred chosen chariots and all the other chariots of Egypt with officers over all of them.
We see supreme pride and arrogance on display from Pharaoh.
God has continually shown his supremacy and Pharaoh won’t accept it.
Now Egypt had a well-equipped and well-trained army. They have chariots which was the great military technology of that day.
The Israelites are unarmed.
9 The Egyptians pursued them, all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots and his horsemen and his army, and overtook them encamped at the sea, by Pi-hahiroth, in front of Baal-zephon.
I think the movie the Ten Commandments actually does a good job of capturing the drama.
The Egyptians are in pursuit of the Israelites.
With all that God had done for the Israelites, how do they respond?
Do they respond in confidence and faith and trust in the Lord?
10 When Pharaoh drew near, the people of Israel lifted up their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians were marching after them, and they feared greatly. And the people of Israel cried out to the Lord. 11 They said to Moses, “Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt?
The Israelites see the Egyptians coming for them and they’re scared.
They ask if he’s brought them out into the desert to die.
It’s the first time in their wilderness journeys that they’ll complain about the Lord’s goodness towards them. But it won’t be the last.
They lose confidence in what God can do.
Again, it can be easy to be critical of that. But it’s tempting to lose sight of God when an army is coming towards you. It’s temping to lose sight of God when a situation seems hopeless.
It’s easy to lose sight of the big picture of what God is doing, easy to forget what God has done and how he has blessed you.
Moses gives them a powerful word.
13 And Moses said to the people, “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today.
Fear not. The most commonly given command in the Bible.
God had promised where he was bringing the Israelites.
Exodus 3:17, the Lord said to Moses:
and I promise that I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, a land flowing with milk and honey
That’s the land to which God had promised Abraham in Genesis.
He promises again in Exodus 6:6 and 6:8.
And after all the plagues, all the wonders that God had done, the Passover where the firstborn of the Egyptians all died and God spared the Israelites.
After all of that, at the beginning of Exodus 13:3-5, the Israelites were told:
3 Then Moses said to the people, “Remember this day in which you came out from Egypt, out of the house of slavery, for by a strong hand the Lord brought you out from this place. No leavened bread shall be eaten. 4 Today, in the month of Abib, you are going out. 5 And when the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, which he swore to your fathers to give you, a land flowing with milk and honey, you shall keep this service in this month
They had again been reminded of where the Lord was bringing them.
God’s promises are trustworthy!
And yet the Israelites fall into fear. The Israelites were in a dire circumstance in the eyes of the world. I think all of us would be tempted to fear too.
But they had the promise of the Lord.
I think fear, stress, worry, and anxiety are extremely common for us in our society.
But so many of the fears we have are not necessarily even about life and death situations. They’re not usually fears where we are in imminent danger.
We so often live in our minds, and dwell on situations and fears.
I can be terrible at this, by the way. So I don’t want to sound condemning.
But the problem is when we do that, and I know some of you know what I’m talking about, we can really go to some irrational places with our fears.
To some extremes that are never going to happen.
I’m not saying we need to be in denial if we’re fearful.
But in the face of fear, let us also respond in gratitude to God for his goodness.
And again, it can be tempting in the face of fear to make up a story for how things could go that is terrible, everything goes wrong, it’s all bad. That type of worry is not productive. It robs us of joy. It wastes time. It distracts us from the promises of God.
God is a good and loving God who has a good plan for his people in the world.
And he had a good plan for Israel.
Let us respond with gratitude, faith, and trust in the Lord in the times where we’re fearful.
The Israelites made a mistake when they jumped to the worst case and lost sight of what God had promised them, lost sight of the wonderful things the Lord had already done for them.
Moses says: stand firm.
We see phrases translated “stand firm” several places in the Bible, especially in Paul’s letters.
In this instance, what it seems to be saying is to stand still. Stand and watch. Look and see.
Especially as Moses continues this thought.
Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. 14 The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.” (Exodus 14:13-14)
He was with them. They’d didn’t have to perfectly understand everything. They didn’t have to have control over everything. Again, I think these are temptations that we all face.
Let us look at what the Lord is doing. At what he has done in our lives and in his church.
Verse 15:
15 The Lord said to Moses, “Why do you cry to me? Tell the people of Israel to go forward.
Go forward?
For the Israelites, with Egypt in pursuit, there are only two directions to go.
Towards the army or towards the water…
But it is in that moment that the Lord will do a miracle that the people could never have possibly imagined.
How could they? God does something that has never happened before it. But that’s what God does.
Verses 16-18 preview what God is specifically going to do.
16 Lift up your staff, and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it, that the people of Israel may go through the sea on dry ground. 17 And I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they shall go in after them, and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host, his chariots, and his horsemen. 18 And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I have gotten glory over Pharaoh, his chariots, and his horsemen.”
God is leading his people. And the Egyptians are going to follow but it won’t go well for them. God delivers his people from slavery to freedom.
Verse 19.
19 Then the angel of God who was going before the host of Israel moved and went behind them, and the pillar of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them, 20 coming between the host of Egypt and the host of Israel. And there was the cloud and the darkness. And it lit up the night without one coming near the other all night.
God had been leading the Israelites by a pillar of fire. He had been directing them but he had also been protecting Israel.
And it says that the pillar moved before Israel.
But verse 20 also says that it came between the Israelites and the Egyptians.
Some think that the crowd created some sort of darkness or fog around the Egyptians which temporarily prevented them from following the Israelites.
21 Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided
The waters part.
I think this is the mental image we probably most prominently have with the sea parting. It’s like in the Ten Commandments with Charlton Heston.
It’s not Moses who does this ultimately. It is God, literally parting the water for his people to cross.
22 And the people of Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry ground, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left.
What must that have been like for the Israelites?
All of the miracles that God had done. Being brought into the desert. And now they’re walking on dry ground with the parted waters of the sea on either side of them.
Imagine that for a moment.
They had been given an incredible promise. And here it happens.
God delivers his people from slavery to freedom.
The Israelites make it across safely but then the Egyptians start pursuing them. They’re no longer being supernaturally prohibited.
23 The Egyptians pursued and went in after them into the midst of the sea, all Pharaoh’s horses, his chariots, and his horsemen. 24 And in the morning watch the Lord in the pillar of fire and of cloud looked down on the Egyptian forces and threw the Egyptian forces into a panic, 25 clogging their chariot wheels so that they drove heavily. And the Egyptians said, “Let us flee from before Israel, for the Lord fights for them against the Egyptians.”
It’s ironic. The wheels the Egyptians chariots were getting clogged. The chariot was their greatest symbol of military strength, but here it’s a weakness.
The soldiers of Pharaoh want to turn back. They say that God is against them.
26 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea, that the water may come back upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots, and upon their horsemen.
God had parted the waters. And now the sea is going to be closed back up.
27 So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to its normal course when the morning appeared. And as the Egyptians fled into it, the Lord threw the Egyptians into the midst of the sea. 28 The waters returned and covered the chariots and the horsemen; of all the host of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea, not one of them remained.
In verse 30, the story ends.
30 Thus the Lord saved Israel that day from the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. 31 Israel saw the great power that the Lord used against the Egyptians, so the people feared the Lord, and they believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses.The Lord delivers his people from slavery to freedom.
The Egyptian army is defeated without Israel having to fight a war. Israel is now totally and finally and forever free of Egypt.
Gospel in Exodus
And that brings us to our second part which is looking at the gospel in the Exodus.
For the Israelites, God is using this miracle as an instrument of his grace.
The Egyptians were evil. They have not submitted to God. They have persecuted and oppressed the people of God, the Israelites.
And so the miraculous event God used for the redemption of Israel, he used for the downfall of Pharaoh and the judgment of Egypt.
Every person is going to ultimately bring glory to God. Either you will bring him glory through being an example of the grace of the gospel. Or you will bring him glory as the righteous judge.
And that is the beginning of Israel’s exodus. God acting in mighty ways to redeem his people and fulfilling his promises.
There are a number of parallels between the exodus and the gospel.
The Israelites were in slavery in Egypt. We were enslaved to sin and Christ redeemed us.
The Israelites complain and rebel here. That’ll be a continual theme. We continue to struggle and rebel. But for the person who has faith, Jesus continues to be faithful.
God redeemed Israel to bring them to the Promised Land. And God is bringing us into a land too. To a new heaven and a new earth.
Both the exodus and the new covenant of the gospel are commemorated with meals. As we talked about last week, the Passover meal was celebrated annually, as a reminder for God’s deliverance in the exodus event and for him sparing the Israelites. With the gospel, we celebrate the Lord’ Supper, communion which is a reminder of Jesus body that was broken for our sin and his blood that was shed for our sin.
Exodus was in fulfillment of the promises of God to Abraham for land and to Moses for deliverance from slavery. The gospel is fulfillment of God’s promise of providing a Messiah, a king from the Davidic line, a perfect and spotless lamb to be sacrificed, of giving his Spirit to those who have faith.
In both stories, we see victory in a place where it appeared to be defeat. Israel was caught between an army and the sea. It seemed there was no way out. In the gospel, Jesus died on the cross, where it looked like that was the end of Jesus’ ministry, where it appeared that he had been defeated.
For both the Exodus and the gospel, they are entirely acts of God. It was entirely a work of God in freeing his people from slavery in Egypt and it is entirely a workof the Lord in redeeming us from the penalty of sin.
The exodus and the gospel are both stories of intervening in a situation where there was no hope. Egypt between the army and the sea. And we were dead in sin, and hopeless apart from Christ.
Both events are undeniable, indisputable, irrefutable, unimpeachable proof of God’s love. God loved Israel. And God loves you. God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have enteral life (John 3:16). God shows his love that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).
Thanks for visiting! Have a blessed day
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Sermon: Passed Over. Exodus 12
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The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, 2 “This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you. 3 Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household. 4 And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb.
5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, 6 and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight.
7 “Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. 8 They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. 9 Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts.
10 And you shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. 11 In this manner you shall eat it: with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover. 12 For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. 13 The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.
Prayer
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be acceptable in your sight,
O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.
Introduction – 9/11 in Washington
In the book “The Only Plane in the Sky,” it gives an oral history of the September 11th attacks from the perspective of hundreds of witnesses.
One brief anecdote in the book always struck me.
Mike Walter who was a correspondent from USA Today was in Washington that day and covering the attack on the Pentagon.
He shares his interaction with a writer from the Wall Street Journal and who made the observation “this is the biggest story we’ll ever cover in our lives. I’m not even sure it’s going to end up on the front page tomorrow.”
And I don’t take that as a complaint or someone being selfish in the face of tragedy.
But the reason why it’s interesting is because I think there’s quite a bit of truth to it.
Now, obviously the Pentagon was also part of the front page news the following morning. But on that day, in the aftermath, and for 20 years of documentaries and stories, the attack on the Pentagon has always been a bit secondary in its attention as compared to the attacks on the World Trade Center.
I begin with that because I think it illustrates something about Exodus 12.
All of last month, we covered the plagues of Exodus.
That’s all we talked about.
And here we come to the tenth and final plague. The death of the firstborn.
It is far and away the most severe.
But in Exodus 12, it’s almost secondary to the entire passage.
Exodus 12 revolves more fully around Passover, it’s institution, celebration, and remembrance.
The plague is in there, but it’s almost mentioned in passing.
Exodus 12 is a long chapter. 51 verses. The tenth plague is covered in just four of those verses.
It’s there, but it’s not on the front page.
The headline is the Passover.
That’s primarily what this chapter is about. The Passover is one of the most significant and enduring events of the Old Testament.
Now there’s a lot going on in Exodus 12, so before we get into the passage, I want to give a brief summary.
In Exodus 12, the Passover is an act of divine deliverance in the tenth plague where the Lord strikes dead the firstborn of the Egyptians but spares the Israelites. God instructs the Israelites to identify themselves as his followers by placing blood on the doorposts of their homes. Exodus 12 also gives instructions for a feast that the Israelites were to have in preparation for the Passover and also gives commands for continuing to celebrate the Passover as an annual tradition.
Before and after the Passover, many elements of the feast are symbols to the Israelites about God’s deliverance. One last thing that we’ll see is that a lot of the symbolism points to the speed by which the Israelites were to leave Egypt.
These are things we’ll all elaborate on more thoroughly as we get into the chapter.
Something else we’ll discuss is how the Passover is ultimately fulfilled in Christ, and so we’ll look at the Passover today in three phases.
Past, present – its fulfillment, and future – our hope.
Passover past, present, and future.
And the main idea of this passage is that the Lord saved by the blood of the lamb.
And with that, we’ll jump into our passage and first point. Passover past.
I should also mention that the first point will be the longest.
Passover past
So at the beginning of Exodus 12, it gives the initial prescription of Passover. And from the beginning of the chapter, it will establish that the Passover is going to be something of monumental significance.
The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, 2 “This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you.
What the Lord is about to do will reorient the entire calendar for the Israelites.
Think of how important and impactful Jesus is. Jesus split time in two.
You could be the most ardent atheist, but it’s still 2021 and that’s because of Jesus.
And the Lord says that the Passover is going to be the new year for Israel.
The passage continues and will talk about a sacrifice which the people will need to make.
3 Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household.4 And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb.
Everyone in Israel is called upon to take a lamb. If someone doesn’t have a lamb, they’re to pool resources with neighbors and go in together and get a lamb.
The passage will say that it is to be a lamb without blemish.
5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, 6 and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight.
It matters that it be a lamb without blemish because it’s pointing to Jesus as the perfect and spotless lamb. It’s also instructive that God wants our best.
The Israelites are to take and sacrifice their lamb.
Once again, this points to the sacrifice of Jesus. It’s also beginning to introduce the sacrificial system of the Old Testament.
That sacrifices were required for various sins and in association with various holidays. Sacrifices could be done in conjunction with prayers and also in praise of God’s answers to prayer.
Sacrificing a prized animal was meant to be an act of faith. It showed trust in god’s provision. It was costly. It was meaningful.
The language of sacrifice is picked up by Paul in Romans 12:1, where he instructs us:
present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
Because of Christ, there is no longer need to make sacrifices where animals are killed. But we are to live in gratitude to the glorious Lord who has forgiven us through the cross and be living sacrifices. Living our lives for the service of the Lord and to his glory as a living sacrifice. Giving what is valuable and prized to us. Our own hearts and lives to God.
And again, the reason why we no longer need sacrifices involving death is that the true sacrifice has already happened. God did not spare his own son. Jesus, the perfect lamb was led to slaughter. His life was given as the final and ultimate sacrifice so that we could have forgiveness, atonement and life through him.
But in the Exodus, on the verge of God’s great redemptive work of Israel, as a symbol of what was to come, the Lord asked the Israelites to sacrifice lambs.
Verse 7, we see the significance of the blood of the lamb.7 “Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it.
After sacrificing the lamb, they’d put blood on the sides of the door frames and the lintels of their houses.
The lintel is the top part of a door frame. Basically the part of the door that’s opposite the threshold.
The instructions continue. Verse 8:
8 They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it
Something which we will see with these instructions is that they aim at speed. These elements of roasted lamb, unleavened bread and bitter herbs have historically been part of the Passover meal, known as the seder.
The Passover meal is really more about symbolism than culinary wonderment.
These elements point to the haste through which the Israelites would flee Egypt and that carried over into the Passover meal.
The flesh was roasted because that was the fastest way to eat it.
That theme continues in verse 11:
11 In this manner you shall eat it: with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste.
Every part of this instruction is meant to indicate the quick fashion in which the Israelites would be called to depart from their land. They were supposed to be wearing sandals. They would carry the staff which was used for outside purposes. Even the speed at which they were to consume the food was to be fast!
The verse ends “It is the Lord’s Passover.”
And Passover could not be more appropriate of a name for this holiday. Because on this first Passover, the faithful to the Lord were passed over, and their lives were spared.
12 For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord.
In this event, the firstborn are struck down. Pharaoh had been warned many times of the consequences.
The text says that this was also a judgment on all the gods of Egypt….that is, all the non-existent gods of Egypt.
That’s a point that we’ve made throughout our study of the plagues.
In the preceding nine plagues, we see a battle between the Lord God and the anti-god, Pharaoh. We also see a battle between the Lord and the non-existent deitied of the Egyptian pantheon. And what we’ve seen in the plague is that those Egyptian deities are helpless to protect Egypt.
And we will see that when the Lord strikes dead the firstborn in Egypt, that their gods once again cannot save them.
In striking dead the firstborn, God surely could have taken any life he wanted to. He is in control.
13 The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.
The blood was taken as a sign that a person trusted in the Lord. It’s a matter of trusting what the Lord has promised. To not put the blood on the door frame, would show that someone didn’t take the Lord seriously, didn’t take his word seriously.
Something that’s important to understand. It’s not that the blood in itself is what saved a person. But it was an outward sign of an inward faith.
In verses 14-16, it’s going back to establishing the annual Passover tradition:
14 “This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast. 15 Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven out of your houses, for if anyone eats what is leavened, from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. 16 On the first day you shall hold a holy assembly, and on the seventh day a holy assembly. No work shall be done on those days. But what everyone needs to eat, that alone may be prepared by you.
So it would be an ongoing part of the tradition to eat unleavened bread. Even today, for observant Jewish people, they go to to great lengths to remove any leaven from their home.
Eating unleavened bread once again points to the haste of things done at Passover.
The advantage of unleavened bread is that you can make it faster because you don’t have to wait for it to rise.
17 And you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you shall observe this day, throughout your generations, as a statute forever.
Verse 17 does officially name the feast as “the Feast of Unleavened Bread.”
The Feast of Unleavened bread is the entire, weeklong feast. Passover is the first day of the feast.
And what’s significant and why this entire chapter is significant in the Bible is that it was meant to continue being observed. And that’ll be reiterated in verse 24. Verse 26 and 27 will tell the Israelites to teach their children about this event.
That in remembering what God did for the Israelites, this feast was meant to point future generations back to God’s deliverance.
Preparation for Passover
Verse 21 represents a shift in the story
Everything we’ve covered so far has been told to Moses and Aaron. But now Moses will start instructing the elders of Israel in preparations for observing the first Passover.
21 Then Moses called all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go and select lambs for yourselves according to your clans, and kill the Passover lamb.
In verse 23, they’re told about the specific judgment which the Egyptians will face.
23 For the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians, and when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you.
So we’ve said a lot so far about Passover in this passage.
Verse 29 is where the passage tells about the tenth plague: the death of the firstborn and the actual deliverance that the Lord brings for Israel through that plague.
The tenth plague
Verses 29-30:
29 At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock. 30 And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and all his servants and all the Egyptians. And there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where someone was not dead.
As we’ve discussed with other plagues, they represent an undoing of creation.
The crowning achievement of the Lord’s creation in Genesis was creating man in his own image on the sixth day. In Exodus, God takes life away.
It is the final judgment upon Pharaoh who had been warned nine previous times. It is the final judgement against Pharaoh for his enslavement of God’s people.
God brings his death, but for his followers, there is life.
Pharaoh will tell Moses and Aaron to take the Israelites and leave.31 Then he summoned Moses and Aaron by night and said, “Up, go out from among my people, both you and the people of Israel; and go, serve the Lord, as you have said. 32 Take your flocks and your herds, as you have said, and be gone, and bless me also!”
Pharaoh will actually try to change his mind and stop them but God was with the Israelites and they were delivered from Egypt.
Verse 38 mentions a mixed multitude who accompanied the Israelites. That’s something we’ve mentioned before but it is again worth pointing out that at least some non-Israelites had come to believe on the Lord through all of this.
The Egyptians had seen God’s power at work too and also had had the opportunity to trust in him when the Israelites were delivered from Egypt.
And that’s the same situation everyone faces, whether or not to trust in the Lord. We don’t have to put blood on our doorposts to save us. But ultimately that was an act of faith. And that hasn’t changed. We too are called to trust and believe in the Lord. The mighty God who delivered his people from slavery. The God who delivers you from your sins.
Passover present
That’s the original Passover and what happened.
Our second and third points will be quicker.
As is clear from the passage, it was meant to be celebrated annually. And the Jews did. And observant Jews still do today.
I previously referenced the seder dinner. Seder omes from a word that means “order.”
In 3,500 years, rabbinical tradition and teaching helped to form the ceremony of the Seder.
Some of these pieces were traced back to the original Passover. Others came in Jewish history from rabbinical traditions.
Once the Israelites were in the Promised Land, and after the temple was built, this impacted Passover traditions. When you had the temple, the lambs were sacrificed at the temple. But what didn’t change was that people could only sacrifice lambs that were perfect.
I think it’s worth spending so much time in talking about Passover because I think it can help give us a greater context and understanding for the events surrounding the death of Jesus.
In the gospels, the time of the death of Christ revolves around the Passover. That’s not a coincidence. Jesus would be sacrificed at the time that was associated with sacrifice. Jesus had gone to Jerusalem for Passover. In Jerusalem, the city within the Roman Empire that was the epicenter of Jewish culture, thousands of lambs would have been slaughtered annually. Jewish people would have been coming in from all over the empire. If you can think of the story in Luke, when Jesus is a kid, and his parents lose track of him.
Luke 2:41:
Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover.
That’s what good Jews did.
We see many traditions of the Seder at the last Supper.
Some of them are small things. In the gospel accounts, it talks about Jesus reclining at the table in Luke 22.
Jesus wasn’t sitting in a la-z-boy. He was on a couch that he was lying on, that was a Seder tradition. They had been enslaved in Egypt but being able to lie down showed the freedom and security.
We see another Passover tradition in the last supper when Jesus alludes to Judas, his betrayer.
John 13:26:
“It is he to whom I will give this morsel of bread when I have dipped it.” So when he had dipped the morsel, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot.
It’s really easy to have the mental image that Jesus is dipping the bread into something like a bowl of olive oil.
It’s the Passover.
They’re not eating at in Italian restaurant.
He’s probably actually referring to dipping the bread in haroset which was a concoction made from apples, nuts, and cinnamon.
Just as in the Passover seder, at the last supper, they ate unleavened bread.
The bread we use for communion is unleavened.
It looks more like a cracker.
Bread with a leavening agent is more doughy. You pull it apart.
But with unleavened bread, it’s more brittle and breaks apart.
We see Jesus breaking bread in Luke 22:19:
19 And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
For over a thousand years of Seder dinners, bread had been broken. Unleavened bread, just like the Israelite forefathers had eaten before fleeing from Egypt.
The body of Jesus, given for you, given for your sins. Given for your forgiveness. And he says “do this in remembrance of me.”
What more fitting words could you say at a Seder? A meal revolving around remembrance, about retelling the story of God saving his people by the blood of the lamb.
Remembering what God has done. Remembering what Jesus has done. Remembering the sins that he’s redeemed you from. Remembering his body that he gave for you. Remembering his death that he died for you. Remembering the grace that he offers to you. Remembering his gospel.
Jesus takes the cup.
Luke 22:20:
20 And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.
The Seder dinner involves four glasses of wine. This seems to have been the second or third glass of wine in the meal, although there’s scholarly debate.
But how profound it is. Wine drank in remembrance of the Passover. Jesus takes the wine, he blesses it, he says it is the new covenant in his blood, at the Seder dinner.
It clearly points backwards to the blood of the Passover lamb, the blood that was put on the door posts. And it also points forward to the blood of Christ, shed for the forgiveness of sins. The blood of the true lamb.
At the beginning of the gospel of John, when John the Baptist sees Jesus he says “Behold, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Jesus is the true lamb of God. The lamb who took the penalty for sins. The one who was sacrificed for the salvation of God’s people.
And by trusting in him and having faith in him, that puts the blood on the doorpost of your heart. On the first Passover, there would not have been a pardon for a person who didn’t put blood on the doorpost. It wasn’t that the blood saved them, God saved them. But to not put the blood on the door was to show that a person didn’t have faith in the Lord, didn’t trust in the Lord.
Jesus is the sacrificial lamb. Pointed to in Isaiah 53.
4 Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
Jesus is the one who took the penalty of sins. A lamb couldn’t do that. It was meant to point ahead. To the true Passover lamb, the true lamb of God who bore the wrath of God for our sins.
Isaiah 53:7
7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he opened not his mouth.
Isaiah 53:12 says:
12 Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many,
and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,
because he poured out his soul to death
and was numbered with the transgressors;
yet he bore the sin of many,
and makes intercession for the transgressors.
So it’s talking about the suffering servant in Isaiah. It calls him the perfect lamb. And Isaiah says he poured out his soul to death.
This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood
When we take the Lord’s Supper, it’s not arbitrary. It’s not just using the random items that were around. It’s all symbolic. It takes symbols important to the first Passover, the first time God had delivered Israel, and it reminds of the new Passover, from the perfect sacrifice for sins.
The Passover passage in Exodus 12:5 says that the lamb that was used had to be without blemish. Jesus is the ultimate lamb without blemish, a life lived in perfection.
1 Corinthians 5:7 says “Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover Lamb.”
The blood of both is on wooden beams: the door posts and the cross. Both the Passover lamb and Jesus were killed publicly.
On the day that Jesus was crucified for our sins, the day ends at sunset on the Jewish calendar and the next day was the day of rest. Jesus and the two robbers had to die before sunset.
John 19 records:
32 So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first, and of the other who had been crucified with him. 33 But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. 34 But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water. 35 He who saw it has borne witness—his testimony is true, and he knows that he is telling the truth—that you also may believe. 36 For these things took place that the Scripture might be fulfilled: “Not one of his bones will be broken.”
No bones were broken on Jesus’ body when he died. In the Passover passage, Exodus 12:46 gives the Israelites instructions for consuming the Passover lamb:It shall be eaten in one house; you shall not take any of the flesh outside the house, and you shall not break any of its bones.
Jesus wasn’t putting his own twist on the Passover. It was the Lord revealing the true meaning of the Passover. It was him showing something that had been part of the plan all along.
The Lord saves by the blood of the lamb.
But you have to believe it. You have to accept his blood. You can’t make him some abstract force, but the personal God who came to save you from your sins. The person God who gave his body and shed his blood for you. To accept what he has done by faith.
A final point. And this will be brief.
We’ve covered Passover as it was instituted in Exodus. We’ve looked at it how it’s fulfilled in Christ.
Past and present.
We close by talking about the final future fulfillment of these elements.
Passover future
In the opening chapters of the Book of Revelation, Jesus has been active with His churches. In Revelation 4, The Apostle John is given a vision of the throne room of heaven. This wondrous site to behold, but Jesus is absent until we get to chapter 5. And John sees a lamb standing, as though it had been slain.
The lamb had been slain, but he has risen.
And because the lamb of God that was slain for sins of man was slain and rose, that is our hope that we can stand before God in that throne room. In Revelation 19, there is a vision of the great wedding feast, and who is the groom? Again it is the lamb.
Revelation 19:9
Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.
God is an inviting God. Jews and Egyptians alike were able to turn to him in trust on the first Passover.
At Passover, Jesus told of his body broken for us, his blood shed for us, and he invited us at the meal to accept it. And the next day, he was sacrificed as the Passover Lamb. And at the final feast at the end of time, we are invited to join the lamb at that feast as well. It is he who invites us, and he who pays the price for our admission. And all we have to do is accept it and believe in him.
As the Israelites trusted in the deliverance of the Lord, and put the blood on their doors, we too can know that we have sinned, and are freely forgiven when we accept the blood of the Lamb, Jesus Christ, slain the forgiveness of our sins.
The Lord saves by the blood of the lamb.
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Erika Kirk offers amazing grace
Erika Kirk, the widow of Charlie Kirk spoke at his memorial service yesterday in Arizona. Erika Kirk said “On the cross, our savior said “Father forgive them, for they not know what they do. That man, that young man, I forgive him.” She also said “I forgive him because it was what Christ did, and is what Charlie would do.”
It was an incredible moment and an incredible offer of forgiveness.
One illustration of grace that’s always struck me comes from the late Tim Keller. It’s the idea that all forgiveness is costly.
If I go to your house, and I break your TV, someone has to pay for it.
You might say “You have to pay for that.” Then I’m bearing the cost.
You might say “It’s ok, don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it.” Then you’re bearing the cost.
Maybe you say, “I bought insurance. That’ll replace it.” Then insurance is bearing the cost. And the homeowner paid for the insurance.
Maybe we come to an agreement where we both pay for part of it. Then we’re sharing the cost.
Maybe you say “I was actually going to stop watching TV.” It’s still bearing the cost of not having the thing that was yours.
In any circumstance, someone must pay. Because all forgiveness is costly. It’s easy to picture with tangible things that have a monetary cost. But it’s also true with forgiveness.
Forgiving a wrong is costly. And the greater the wrong, the higher the cost. If someone is 20 minutes late for a meeting, that’s annoying, but a pretty small cost. If someone hurts you or someone you love, that forgiveness comes at a much greater cost.
There’s nothing the man who killed Charlie Kirk can ever do to undo what he has done. There’s nothing he can do to earn her forgiveness, there’s no way he can pay her back or make it right.
The only way he could be forgiven by Erika Kirk was for her to freely give it. Because of hate, she senselessly lost her husband less than two weeks ago. Her children lost their father.
It’s easy to understand why she would hate that man. To many, that feeling would be totally justified. But she responds with forgiveness.
Forgiveness is striking.
The Bible says that all sin and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). We all sin against God in the things that we do that we shouldn’t do. We sin in the things that we should do but don’t do. It’s not just occasional. We sin as a habit, as a way of life, as a matter of course. We could never earn forgiveness from a holy God.
The gospel is that Jesus paid the price for our sin on the cross. That there was no way for us to earn our forgiveness, or to pay for it. And so he bore the cost himself by absorbing the penalty that we deserved.
To some, the cross is foolishness (1 Corinthians 1:18). To others, it is the power of God for salvation (Romans 1:16-17).
Hatred for that man might have been understandable. Forgiveness for him is glorious.
In the Gospel of Luke, as Jesus is being crucified, he asks God to forgive his killers when he says “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
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Sermon: the Exodus plagues – Darkness. Exodus 10:21-29
Manuscript
21 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, a darkness to be felt.” 22 So Moses stretched out his hand toward heaven, and there was pitch darkness in all the land of Egypt three days. 23 They did not see one another, nor did anyone rise from his place for three days, but all the people of Israel had light where they lived.
24 Then Pharaoh called Moses and said, “Go, serve the Lord; your little ones also may go with you; only let your flocks and your herds remain behind.” 25 But Moses said, “You must also let us have sacrifices and burnt offerings, that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God. 26 Our livestock also must go with us; not a hoof shall be left behind, for we must take of them to serve the Lord our God, and we do not know with what we must serve the Lord until we arrive there.” 27 But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he would not let them go.
28 Then Pharaoh said to him, “Get away from me; take care never to see my face again, for on the day you see my face you shall die.” 29 Moses said, “As you say! I will not see your face again.”
Prayer
14 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be acceptable in your sight,
O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.
Introduction
Over the past few weeks, we’ve been moving through passages in Exodus and building up to the Exodus event when God frees the Israelites from slavery in Egypt.
But before that happened, there was Pharaoh and his refusal to allow the Israelites to leave.
And so God brought a series of plagues upon Pharaoh which we’ve been covering for the past six weeks.
This morning, we look at the ninth and penultimate plague. Darkness.
In the text, this ninth plague is among the shorter plagues but it still covers many of the same themes which we saw in the previous eight.
As we’ve moved through these passages, we’ve seen an intensification of plagues.
They started as nuisances.
Then the death of livestock.
Disease which caused boils.
Then God unleashed severe weather from the heavens with terrible hail storms.
We saw the ecosystem devastated by a plague of locusts.
And here we come to darkness.
In comparison to what has come before, at first glance, that might seem almost anticlimactic or more tame than its predecessors.
But as we move into this plague, we will see that this is anything but the case.
With that, we’ll jump into our text this morning.
And the first thing that we’ll see is that this ninth plagues comes without warning.
Ninth plague: darkness
Verses 21-23:
21 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, a darkness to be felt.” 22 So Moses stretched out his hand toward heaven, and there was pitch darkness in all the land of Egypt three days. 23 They did not see one another, nor did anyone rise from his place for three days, but all the people of Israel had light where they lived.
The first thing that we must appreciate about darkness is that it impacted people in ancient times differently than it impacts us today.
During harvest, you’ll see combines at night. Powerful lights.
We can travel in the dark. Our cars have lights. We have cell phones. We have street lights, and in bigger cities, you see more and more street lights.
None of these were luxuries which were enjoyed in ancient times.
Darkness had a stopping power in the ancient world that it doesn’t have today. It was difficult to travel in the dark – and also dangerous. It’s when unsavory people are most likely to be on the move. And it’s when many dangerous animal predators are most likely to be on the hunt.
And so God brings utter darkness upon Egypt.
Verse 21 says that it was a darkness that could be felt.
Some scholars take that literally and think it’s a reference to some sort of sand storm.
I don’t like to assume that since a dust storm is never mentioned and that interpretation is speculative. I think the darkness being felt is a metaphor. That it was so utterly dark that it caused this visceral response almost like it was tangible.
There’s an intensity of the darkness.
The text says that there was pitch darkness in Egypt for three days.
Think of how disorienting that would be.
It’s not like they had clocks or cell phones they could look to in order to check the time or even what day it was. In ancient times, and undoubtedly in places today, people still use the sun in order to help keep the time.
But with a few days of no sun, how do you know when it is?
How do you know “well it’s been a few hours, or it should be morning now.” You wouldn’t know any of that. Tme would lose all meaning.
Three days in utter darkness.
Three days confined to your house.
Stumbling around.
And a theme that we’ve seen in so many of the other plagues we see again with the darkness, but points back to creation and God’s uncreation of Egypt.
Genesis 1:1-4 says:In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good.
In the beginning, God made the light.
In the Exodus, he takes it away.
And there’s another reason why the darkness would be so disconcerting to the Egyptians.
Yes, darkness made things more difficult and dangerous.
But darkness also once again turned their religious worldview upside down.
Throughout these plagues, we’ve talked about how many of the plagues impacted aspects of Egyptian life which were thought to be under the domain of various gods.
And one of the most venerated of all the Egyptian pantheon was their creator and sun God: Ra.
In bringing about a plague of darkness, after all of these other plagues have shown up the Egyptian deities, the plague of darkness shows the ineffectiveness of their greatest deity.
It also once again showed the powerlessness of Pharaoh.
The Egyptians believed that Pharaoh was a quasi-divine manifestation of Ra.
And yet Pharaoh is powerless to stop the darkness.
I think it’s hard for us to appreciate that mentality and worldview.
I’ve been listening to the audio book “In order to live’ by Yeonmi Park, a woman who escaped from North Korea. And one of the things she talks about in the book is that when Kim il Sung – the grandfather of current North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un – died, how difficult that was for her family to accept. Kim Il Sung has started the Kim dynasty and had so brainwashed the people into thinking that he himself was a god, that when he died, it was hard for some of her relatives to accept.
And I think about the Egyptians and their views of Pharaoh. Believing that Pharaoh was a divine figure.
The plague of darkness would have been earth-shattering.
Philip Ryken summarizes the situation fantastically:
“The plague of darkness proved God’s absolute power over creation. God can unmake what he has made. This is something that all the plagues showed by reversing the six days of creation. The God who made the waters turned the Nile into blood. The God who made green things grow destroyed vegetation with hail and locusts. The God who made creatures swim in the sea and swarm on dry land brought death to fish and frogs. The God who made men and beasts sent them disease and even death. Finally, the God who brought light out of darkness made the light fade to black.”
We continue in our passage.
Light in the darkness – the light in Israel
Because amid the darkness in Egypt, there was one place with light:
Verse 23 ends with:
all the people of Israel had light where they lived.
I mentioned a moment ago that some scholars believe that it was a dust storm.
There are scholars who will try to give purely naturalistic explanations for how they could have happened.
But then several of the miracles give us other details that are hard to explain with a purely naturalistic explanation.
So you read about darkness and say, “It was a dust storm. Dust Storms are a thing. That caused the darkness.”
But then how is it not dark in the Israelite portion of Egypt?
How is it that their sector just happens to be insulated from the darkness?
And so what happens is you almost need another miracle to explain the naturalistic explanation.
The plagues are divine acts of an almighty God.
That’s what we see in the plagues.
That the Lord is absolutely sovereign over everything in his creation.
And so he spares Israel.
all the people of Israel had light where they lived.
What a great picture that is.
In a darkened Egypt, God’s people still had light.
It’s a symbol for how God’s people were to be in the Old Testament and it’s a symbol for how God’s people are to be today.
Because the world is dark.
We’ve spent two years in the Gospel of John. John loves the light and darkness imagery.
The light is a symbol for righteousness and truth. Darkness is a symbol for what is sinful and wicked.
Jesus is the light of the world.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus calls his followers light.
Matthew 5:14-16:
14 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.
You don’t have light to keep it hidden.You have light to shine.
And as God’s people, we are to shine his light in the world.
The world is in darkness, but in our church, in our homes, in our families, in our lives, we are called to shine light.
Jesus doesn’t say “you should be light” or “you could be light” or “it’d be really great if you were light.”
He says “you are the light of the world.”
In a dark world, the Lord has given us the light of the world, Jesus Christ.
The light of the world who was the true light.
And that light is meant to shine so brightly in his people that we shine it on the rest of the world.
We shine by loving people. We shine in truth. We shine in sharing the message of Jesus. We shine in pointing people to Jesus.
Are you shining for Jesus?
Do you ever meet someone and it is so obvious when you interact with them by how they talk, how they carry themselves, their countenance, it’s obvious that they know Jesus?
Let us be a church full of people like that.
Let us be people who passionately and unabashedly and unapologetically and fully live to shine the light of the glory of Christ in our community and in our world.
And that will impact people.
2 Corinthians 2:15-16 talks of how the followers of Jesus will impact society. Some in society will respond favorably, others will not:
15 For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, 16 to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life.
Some will respond favorably. Others will not. Who will and who won’t, we cannot control.
We’re just called to be faithful, and trust that the Lord will bless that.
But again as people, and as a church, we are to be the place that’s shining brightest in our community.
We come to the third act of the passage. Verse 24, we see the response from Pharaoh.
Pharaoh’s heart
24 Then Pharaoh called Moses and said, “Go, serve the Lord; your little ones also may go with you; only let your flocks and your herds remain behind.”
Now the passage had previously said that there were three days and nights of this darkness.
It doesn’t specify if that period had ended by this point or if Pharaoh is talking to Moses in the pitch black.
Moses has been trying to get Pharaoh to allow the Israelites to go.
In the most recent plague, Pharaoh tried to allow just the men.
In this verse, he will allow all of the Israelites to go but says that they must leave their livestock.
We again see the incredible pride of Pharaoh that he is trying to still negotiate. He is still trying to save face.
A person can be totally beaten down and defeated and still refuse to look to God in all of that.
Pharaoh really doesn’t have any buying power with trying to negotiate. Him and his kingdom have been repeatedly turned upside down.
And so Moses says in verses 25-26:
25 But Moses said, “You must also let us have sacrifices and burnt offerings, that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God. 26 Our livestock also must go with us; not a hoof shall be left behind, for we must take of them to serve the Lord our God, and we do not know with what we must serve the Lord until we arrive there.”
The Israelites go and the livestock goes.
The passage says not a hoof shall be left behind.
They’re taking everything.
How does Pharaoh respond? Contrition? Humility?
Verses 27-28:
27 But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he would not let them go. 28 Then Pharaoh said to him, “Get away from me; take care never to see my face again, for on the day you see my face you shall die.”
Pharaoh’s heart is hardened.
Now as we wind down this morning, I want to revisit that subject. I talked about it over a month ago. The plagues series in Exodus repeatedly mentions Pharaoh’s heart being hardened.
In this verse and others, it says that it was the Lord who hardened Pharaoh’s heart.
In other places, it says that Pharaoh hardened his own heart.
And in some places, it doesn’t specifically say the cause but reports that Pharaoh’s heart was hardened.
These are always interesting verses to consider when we think of doctrines like providence and divine sovereignty.
I don’t think that these verses are enough on their own to build entire doctrines.
Pharaoh does harden his own heart. He does that by his sin and by his refusal to listen to God.
We live in a world full of hard hearted people who refuse to obey God.
We’re fallen and sinful.
We choose to sin.
We’re responsible for our own sin.
But in God hardening the heart of Pharaoh, I think that points us to how God can use sinful people who refuse him for his own divine purposes.
God doesn’t harden the heart of someone who otherwise would have loved him or obeyed him.
Again, God doesn’t cause Pharaoh to sin.
But God does utilize a sinful Pharaoh for his divine and eternal purposes. We see that throughout the Bible.
In the prophets, we see God using entire kingdoms as instruments of judgment upon the Israelites. Kingdoms who were pagan such as the Assyrians and the Babylonians.
In Jesus’ day, we see pagan Roman officials such as Herrod.
And we see it with Pharaoh.
His heart is hardened to God. He will not listen and so he will instead be an object of God’s judgment.
Don’t feel sorry for him. Pharaoh is not a victim. He’s guilty of his sins. He sins against God and his people.
And there will be consequences for that. And the wheels are now in motion for one final plague.
Moses leaves Pharaoh and says in verse 29:
“As you say! I will not see your face again.”
Pharaoh would soon meet the God whom he continued to refuse to obey.
Chapter 11
I close by reading chapter 11, which is the final warning for the final plague.
Everything else the Lord had said would come to pass came to pass. And after nine plagues, God promises one final and ultimate plague upon Egypt. After all of the refusal to release the Israelites, God will strike down the firstborn of all of the Egyptians.
The Lord said to Moses, “Yet one plague more I will bring upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt. Afterward he will let you go from here. When he lets you go, he will drive you away completely. 2 Speak now in the hearing of the people, that they ask, every man of his neighbor and every woman of her neighbor, for silver and gold jewelry.” 3 And the Lord gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians. Moreover, the man Moses was very great in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh’s servants and in the sight of the people.
4 So Moses said, “Thus says the Lord: ‘About midnight I will go out in the midst of Egypt, 5 and every firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the slave girl who is behind the handmill, and all the firstborn of the cattle. 6 There shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there has never been, nor ever will be again. 7 But not a dog shall growl against any of the people of Israel, either man or beast, that you may know that the Lord makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel.’
8 And all these your servants shall come down to me and bow down to me, saying, ‘Get out, you and all the people who follow you.’ And after that I will go out.” And he went out from Pharaoh in hot anger. 9 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Pharaoh will not listen to you, that my wonders may be multiplied in the land of Egypt.”
10 Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh, and the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he did not let the people of Israel go out of his land.
Because of sin, Egypt will bear great consequences.
Next week – Lord willing, we look at the tenth and final of the plagues of Exodus.
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