Josh Benner

Category: Church

  • Sermon: Passed Over. Exodus 12

    Sermon: Passed Over. Exodus 12

    Manuscript

    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.

    Thanks for visiting! If you liked this post, please subscribe.

  • Erika Kirk offers amazing grace

    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.”

    Thanks for reading! If you liked this post, please share and subscribe.

  • Sermon: Studying the Exodus plagues – locusts. Exodus 10:1-20

    Sermon: Studying the Exodus plagues – locusts. Exodus 10:1-20

    Sermon manuscript:

    12 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the land of Egypt for the locusts, so that they may come upon the land of Egypt and eat every plant in the land, all that the hail has left.” 13 So Moses stretched out his staff over the land of Egypt, and the Lord brought an east wind upon the land all that day and all that night. When it was morning, the east wind had brought the locusts. 

    14 The locusts came up over all the land of Egypt and settled on the whole country of Egypt, such a dense swarm of locusts as had never been before, nor ever will be again. 15 They covered the face of the whole land, so that the land was darkened, and they ate all the plants in the land and all the fruit of the trees that the hail had left. Not a green thing remained, neither tree nor plant of the field, through all the land of Egypt. 16 Then Pharaoh hastily called Moses and Aaron and said, “I have sinned against the Lord your God, and against you. 17 Now therefore, forgive my sin, please, only this once, and plead with the Lord your God only to remove this death from me.” 

    18 So he went out from Pharaoh and pleaded with the Lord. 19 And the Lord turned the wind into a very strong west wind, which lifted the locusts and drove them into the Red Sea. Not a single locust was left in all the country of Egypt. 20 But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he did not let the people of Israel go.

    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

    In the summer of 1874, trillions of locusts wrought havoc on the great planes. From Montana to the Dakota and Minnesota, they would make their way to Texas. 

    There was little that farmers could do to stop them. Word of the coming invasion spread faster than the locusts, but even with advanced warning, there was little to stop swarms of locusts. Some farmers set fires around the perimetrs of their fields, but with so many locusts, there are also accounts of them smothering out fires. 

    That same summer, Laura, Mary, and Carrie Ingalls along with Ma and Pa moved to Plum Creek in Minnesota. In “On the Banks of Plum Creek,” Laura Ingalls Wilder describes the invasion: 

    “Plunk! Something hit Laura’s head and fell to the ground. She looked down and saw the largest grasshopper she had ever seen. Then huge brown grasshoppers were hitting the ground all around her, hitting her head and her face and her arms. They came thudding down like hail.

    The cloud was hailing grasshoppers. The cloud was grasshoppers. Their bodies hid the sun and made darkness. Their thin, large wings gleamed and glittered. The rasping whirring of their wings filled the whole air and they hit the ground and the house with the noise of a hailstorm…

    Grasshoppers covered the ground, there was not one bare bit to step on. Laura had to step on grasshoppers and they smashed squirming and slimy under her feet.…

    (she continues)

    Then Laura heard another sound, one big sound made of tiny nips and snips and gnawings.… The grasshoppers were eating.… You could hear the millions of jaws biting and chewing.… Day after day the grasshoppers kept on eating. They ate all the wheat and the oats. They ate every green thing—all the garden and all the prairie grass.… The whole prairie was bare and brown. Millions of brown grasshoppers whirred low over it. Not a green thing was in sight anywhere.”

    Today, we’re continuing our series in Exodus and looking at the Ten Plagues. 

    After suffering through a series of plagues, having the ecosystem turned upside down, the deaths of livestock, painful boils, historical hail storms, we see a plague of locusts. 

    And like the Great Plains invasion of locusts in 1874, we will read of the incredible destruction brought forth by locusts in Exodus.

    And so we’ll jump right into the passage this morning. We will be shorter than normal. 

    And our three points will be the scenes of the passage. 

    We’ll see the plague warned, we’ll see a failed negotiation attempt, we’ll see the plague brought to fruition, and we’ll see Pharaoh’s efforts to see the plague stopped. 

    With that, we’ll jump into our passage this morning and look at the plague warned. 

    1. The plague warned 

    Beginning in verses 1-2:

    Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, that I may show these signs of mine among them, 2 and that you may tell in the hearing of your son and of your grandson how I have dealt harshly with the Egyptians and what signs I have done among them, that you may know that I am the Lord.” 

    Verse 2 gets at the generational nature of the work which the Lord is doing in this plague and in all of the plagues. 

    The Exodus is meant to be a generational event. For the Israelites, it was something meant for their children, and grandchildren, and for future generatyions, up to today as we are given this story as an example of the glorious miracles that the Lord did to free his people from slavery in Egypt. 

    The Exodus is the gospel of the Old Testament. 

    It is constantly pointed back to. 

    Dozens of references to this are made throughout the rest of the Old Testament, while we are constantly pointed to the importance of remembering these events. 

    It’s mentioned in Exodus 20 when God gives the Ten commandments. During their desert wanderings, the Israelties are pointed back to God’s redeeming work in bringing them out of Egypt. In later generations, the prophets point back to this in contrast with Israel’s failure to follow God’s covenant. 

    For the Israelites, they had a story that pointed them back to God’s great act of redemption in freeing them from slavery in Egypt. 

    And for Christians, we have a story that points us back to God’s great act of redemption in freeing us from the slavery of sin through the grace of Christ. 

    As the Israelites were to tell their children and their grandchildren about what God had done for them, we are called to tell the next generation about what God has done for us through Jesus Christ. 

    Stories are powerful in communicating lessons, values, teaching us about where we came from and who we are. 

    And the gospel does all of that. 

    In his commentary of Exodus, Philip Ryken says: “It explains who we are: the people of God. It explains where we came from: a life of sin and misery. It explains where we are going: to live with Christ in mansions of glory. It explains who God is: the Father of mercy and love. And it explains why we are here: to glorify God by living for Christ.” 

    Stories are powerful. 

    A great movie can be enjoyed over and over again. 

    A great family story can be told and retold and even though you know what happened, it still makes you laugh. 

    And God’s story matters. In both the Exodus, and the gospel, and throughout the Bible, we see God’s story of redeeming and restoring a sinful humanity to himself. 

    In verse 2, God says that in telling this story to future generations, you may know that I am God. 

    The stories of God’s work are powerful. 

    And it matters that we tell that story. 

    If I saved your life, you’d tell people about it. 

    We honor those who do great things to save, preserve, and protect others. 

    Yet we often don’t tell people about the God who saved our soul. 

    Why is that? 

    We’re called to share that story both with our children but also with the world. 

    Again, through the story of what God has done and is doing in the world, that stirs the human heart. That points people to God. That points people to goodness.

    And that points people to true life.  

    That we were sinful people and we were dead in our sins. But Jesus, the Son of God, came into the world. He lived a life without sin. He lived the life we could not live and died the death that we deserved so that we could have eternal life with him in heaven. 

    And that’s the truest thing there is. And that’s the greatest reality there is. 

    And that’s the gospel. 

    We don’t have to get it all figured out. We don’t have to get everything right. We have to come to Jesus. 

    Romans 10:13 says that all who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. When we believe and trust in Jesus, there is forgiveness and life. 

    In Exodus, Moses and Aaron go to Pharaoh with the warning of this plague of locusts. 

    Exodus 10:3-6:

    3 So Moses and Aaron went in to Pharaoh and said to him, “Thus says the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, ‘How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? Let my people go, that they may serve me. 4 For if you refuse to let my people go, behold, tomorrow I will bring locusts into your country, 5 and they shall cover the face of the land, so that no one can see the land. And they shall eat what is left to you after the hail, and they shall eat every tree of yours that grows in the field, 6 and they shall fill your houses and the houses of all your servants and of all the Egyptians, as neither your fathers nor your grandfathers have seen, from the day they came on earth to this day.’ 

    There we have the official warning of the plague of locusts which will come if he continues to refuse allowing the Israelites to go. 

    Moses says that they will cover the face of the land so that no one can see the land. 

    And when he’s had seven other plagues and he’s told a plague of locusts will come, Pharaoh still does not relent. The passage says that the Lord had hardened Pharaoh’s heart. 

    While Pharaoh doesn’t want to allow the Israelites to leave, some of his advisors are starting to have a change of heart. 


    Verse 7: 

    7 Then Pharaoh’s servants said to him, “How long shall this man be a snare to us? Let the men go, that they may serve the Lord their God. Do you not yet understand that Egypt is ruined?” 

    Pharaoh’s servants look at all of the destruction and feel like their society is ruined and are saying “just let them go. What’s it all for?” 

    1. A failed negotiation 

    Verse 8, we see a brief scene where Pharaoh tries to negotiate. This is something else that we’ve seen in other plagues. Attempts at bargaining with the Lord. 

    We don’t have any leverage with an all powerful Lord. 

    Pharaoh will fain willingness to release some of the Israelites. 

    8 So Moses and Aaron were brought back to Pharaoh. And he said to them, “Go, serve the Lord your God. But which ones are to go?

    So Pharaoh says that they can go, but then he asks “which ones are to go?”

    He doesn’t want all of the Israelites to go. If some stay back, that will increase the likelihood they’ll return. 

    But Moses has been directed by the Lord and is not in a position to negotiate. 

    ” 9 Moses said, “We will go with our young and our old. We will go with our sons and daughters and with our flocks and herds, for we must hold a feast to the Lord.”

    In other words, everyone will go. 

    In verse 11, Pharaoh will say: 

    11 No! Go, the men among you, and serve the Lord, for that is what you are asking.”

    So Pharaoh was only willing to allow the men to go for this religious pilgrimage. Again, he’s counting on them coming back to Egypt if their wives and children are left behind. 

    But that will not do. 

    This worship and God’s plan is not just meant for the Israelite men. It’s men for the entire Israelite people. 

    And since Pharaoh has again refused to listen to the Lord, he will now have to bear the full force of the Lord’s judgment. 

    1. The eighth plague: locusts

    Verses 13-15:

    13 So Moses stretched out his staff over the land of Egypt, and the Lord brought an east wind upon the land all that day and all that night. When it was morning, the east wind had brought the locusts. 14 The locusts came up over all the land of Egypt and settled on the whole country of Egypt, such a dense swarm of locusts as had never been before, nor ever will be again. 

    15 They covered the face of the whole land, so that the land was darkened, and they ate all the plants in the land and all the fruit of the trees that the hail had left. Not a green thing remained, neither tree nor plant of the field, through all the land of Egypt.

    And the destruction is unleashed. 

    When the text says that the locusts covered the ground, that’s probably not much of an exaggeration. I think about Laura Ingalls Wilder’s memoir. 

    I have a couple of clips of locusts that we’ll look at in a moment. 

    But here are a few facts about locusts.

    The desert locust is the most destructive pest on earth. 

    In many parts of the world, they’re a common nuisance. 

    But when the conditions are right, when there are heavy rains and wet soil, a physical change happens in locusts which gives the conditions for them forming massive swarms where they begin to reproduce rapidly. 

    While one locust is insignificant, a massive swarms of locusts can cause almost unimaginable damage. 

    Some good news for us. The Rocky Mountain locust which plagued the Great Plains in the 1870s actually went extinct in 1902 and North America has no native locust species. 

    A locust swarm can have over 100 million locusts in a square mile, and a swarm can be the size of a city. Large swarms can have tens of billions of locusts. 

    Locusts eat nearly their body weight in a day. They will eat crops, flowers, leaves, grains, and tree bark. And if they run out of food, locusts will cannibalize each other. From 2003-2005, swarms did more than $2.5 billion dollars in crop losses in West Africa. 

    According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the number of locusts in a square mile can consume the same amount of food in a day as 35,000 people. 

    And they’re mobile. A locust can cover 120 miles in a day. In 1988, swarms from Africa made it to England. 

    Last year, and continuing this year, due to heavy rains, several countries in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia had plagues of locusts which have impacted the food supplies for millions of people. 

    In our passage, verse 15 gets at the impact of the locusts.

    Not a green thing remained, neither tree nor plant of the field, through all the land of Egypt.

    And something to keep in mind. We live in a time and place where there are lots of resources. If we don’t have enough food, there are things that can be done. It might cost more. But we are able to get food. 

    The Egyptians losing crops to hail in the last plauge and then to locusts in this plague would be incredibly perilous and difficult. 

    But as we’ve seen with other plagues, the Lord uses something natural to the world as an instrument of judgment. 

    Sin is serious. And the sin of Pharaoh was serious as he continued to refuse to release the Israelites. 

    Earlier in the chapter, Pharaoh had arrogantly dealt with Moses and Aaron, but amid the destruction of the locusts, he must again come to them with his tail between his legs. 

    And that brings us to our fourth and final scene. 

    1. Pharaoh’s effort to stop the plague

    And as he’s done before, he’ll talk the talk when he says in verse 16:

    16 Then Pharaoh hastily called Moses and Aaron and said, “I have sinned against the Lord your God, and against you. 17 Now therefore, forgive my sin, please, only this once, and plead with the Lord your God only to remove this death from me.” 

    We’ve seen this pattern in some of the other plagues where Pharaoh asks for intervention, he asks for Moses to intercede and go to the Lord on his behalf. 

    Pharaoh uses a lot of the right language. He talks of his sin and asks for forgiveness. 

    We’ve seen it before. 

    And Moses takes this apology before the Lord in verse 18. 

    Verse 19:

    19 And the Lord turned the wind into a very strong west wind, which lifted the locusts and drove them into the Red Sea. Not a single locust was left in all the country of Egypt. 20 But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he did not let the people of Israel go.

    The Lord answers the prayer. 

    The Lord wipes out the locusts in the Red Sea. It’s foreshadowing what will happen to Pharaoh himself in chapter 14. 

    But how does Pharaoh respond to this prayer being answered? 

    The section ends by saying that he did not let the people of Israel go. 

    Once again, Pharaoh reneges. 

    Here’s what’s so amazing about the whole story. 

    Pharaoh keeps seeing the Lord answer his prayers, and yet never listens to God, never worships God, never turns to God in faith. Instead, Pharaoh continues to be spared and whatever repentance he just spoke of, we see what is ultimately insincere as we see time and again that he has not been changed. 

    Pharaoh might say he’s sorry and use the right language in talking about his sin when he’s suffering. That is interesting in itself. He knows the language to use. He has some concept of what he ought to say or why he’s wrong. But whenever things return to normal, he continues in direct rebellion against God. 

    Empty and faithless words. Wanting God’s blessing but not wanting God. Wanting God’s grace but not wanting to live for God. 

    There’s nothing new under the sun. People still play these games today. People want cheap grace. People want easy grace. They want God to do what they want him to do so that they can go back to doing what they want to do. 

    God is patient. He’s slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. But he is also righteous and just. God continues to give chances. Pharaoh has again and again made promises to free the Israelites and then refused. God knows all of this.

    But there will be a time when our time runs out. 

    And there will ultimately be a day of reckoning. 

    And while God is gracious and merciful, he does not compromise on insincere faith. He doesn’t tolerate phony moralism. And he will not accept disingenuous confessions and repentance. God is all knowing. He knows who we are. He knows our hearts. He knows where our faith is. 

    Let us not go through life playing games. Let our plan not be a death bed confession. 

    But let us live for God today. Why? Because that’s the truest way to live, it’s the best way to live, and it’s the blessed way to live. 

    Thanks for visiting! If you liked this post, please share and subscribe.

  • Sermon: Studying the Exodus plagues – Hail. Exodus 9:13-35

    Sermon: Studying the Exodus plagues – Hail. Exodus 9:13-35

    Manuscript

    Sometimes we ignore warning signs. 

    Pharaoh was given several. 

    A person ignores the check engine light, ignores something a doctor tells them. 

    CEO’s ignore warning signs of issues in their companies. 

    Cyber security experts warned Equifax that their data was vulnerable and could be easily breached. They didn’t listen and they were hacked. The data breach compromised the data of 145 million Americans. 

    Companies like General Motors and Toyota have been warned about safety issues in cars and ignored whistleblowers. 

    Pharaoh has seen his kingdom turned upside down by a series of plagues and yet continues to resist the one thing that has brought the promise of relief. 

    Sending the Israelites into the wilderness. 

    We’re continuing in the plagues of Exodus. This morning, we look at the seventh. Hail. 

    In many ways, a tremendous hailing thunderstorm SEEMS like the stereotype for a good plague. The heavens opening up and unleashing destruction. 

    And with that, we’ll jump right into our passage this morning. 

    1.  Pharaoh warned

    Beginning in verse 13:

    13 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Rise up early in the morning and present yourself before Pharaoh and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, “Let my people go, that they may serve me. 

    So as we saw in the first and the fourth plagues, Moses is instructed to confront Pharaoh in the morning. 

    There’s actually a pattern to the plagues where they go in three cycles, each consisting of three plagues. 

    And across the plague cycles, there are similar patterns to the first plague in each of the three cycles. There are similarities to the second plague in each of the three cycles. And there are similarities to the third plague in each of the three cycles. 

    So the first nine plagues are in these cycles of three. The tenth and final plague is totally separate from what comes before it. 

    As we’ve talked about various creation themes in the Exodus, I also think it’s interesting how much order there is to the plagues. Genesis gives an orderly creation. Exodus gives an orderly uncreation. 

    Before we continue in our text, I have a question. 

    Why? 

    Who has this all happened? 

    What’s this all been for? 

    This is the seventh plague. 

    There will still be three to come. 

    Ten divine judgments from the Lord upon Egypt. 

    Why? 

    Why didn’t God just free the Israelites? 

    Why didn’t he just teleport them from Egypt to the promised land? 

    Why didn’t he just strike Pharaoh dead and have a new Pharaoh who would be more sympathetic? 

    Why didn’t he just start with the last plague first and have Israel freed then? 

    So often, I hear people ask why God does the things he does. 

    A person praises God for being healed of a disease. 

    Someone else asks “why’d God give it to you in the first place?’

    A person talks about God’s protection in being rescued from a natural disaster. 

    Someone else asks why God allowed that to happen in the first place. 

    So often, we want to ask why God allows any bad things, but we never question why a God gives sinful people in a fallen world any good things. 

    Whenever we look to why God does something for his people, a person can always ask why God didn’t do things differently. 

    But verse 15 says something very important. 

    15 For by now I could have put out my hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, and you would have been cut off from the earth. 16 But for this purpose I have raised you up, to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth. 

    Let’s not overlook this. 

    I want to read it again. This is what the Lord had said to Pharaoh. 

    I could have put out my hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, and you would have been cut off from the earth. 

    God is saying “I could have wiped all of you out.” 

    Verse 16 begins: But for this purpose…

    But for this purpose all of this is happening. 

    But for this purpose I haven’t wiped you out. 

    But for this purpose I’ve brought these plagues. 

    The Lord says: But for this purpose, I have raised you up, to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth. 

    God is doing all of this to show his power and for the glory of his own name. 

    Is that vain to do? 

    The gods of our age

    The Egyptians had their pantheon. They had their gods for various areas of life. 

    They had gods for the things that they valued. The river was central to their lives, so they had gods of the Nile. Family was important, so they had fertility gods. They cared about the afterlife too so they had gods of life and death. Their agriculture mattered to them so they had gods of the crops, gods of the livestock. 

    Our world makes up gods too. 

    We think we’re so different from ancient peoples. 

    Everyone, regardless of if you’re the most devout person of faith or the most ardent atheist, everyone has something that they value above all other things. 

    And whatever that thing is is your god. 

    In our day, we can worship family, money, success, accomplishments, pleasure, leisure, possessions, security, health, politicians, celebrities, and sports. Just to name a few.  

    Those are the areas where we can put our hope, where we can try to get our meaning, and the things and people that we can glorify. 

    None of those things are bad in themselves. 

    But they all make bad gods.  

    And so God has kept the Egyptians alive, he’s kept Pharaoh alive for the purpose of his own glory. 

    Because in the Exodus, God is glorified both in his redemption of the Israelites, in his signs, in his sparing of the Israelites, in parting the waters of the Red Sea, in leading the Isrealites in their wanderings, in being faithful to his covenant promises. 

    God is glorified in all of that. 

    But he is also glorified in his judgment against Pharaoh. 

    God’s name is proclaimed throughout the whole earth because of these plagues. 

    Why ten? 

    Ten is pretty hard to ignore. 

    One could be ignored. 

    Two might be thought of as a coincidence. 

    But God brings ten blows upon Egypt and upon Pharaoh leaving no doubt that he is the Lord. 

    We’ve talked a lot about how the plagues confront the Egyptian pantheon of gods. In doing ten plages, that gave God even more opportunities to show his power over the false gods of Egypt. 

    So in both his redemption of the Israelites and in his judgement upon Egypt, God’s name is being proclaimed, God is being glorified.

    All men will bring God glory in the end. You will bring him glory through being an example of his grace or you will bring him glory through being an example of his righteous and holy judgement. 

    And so yes, God could have crushed Pharaoh right from the start but he has not because he is concerned about his glory. 

    God’s concern for his glory is something that some people don’t like. 

    If God is infinite, why does he care about his name going out in the world? 

    Isn’t that insecure? 

    C.S. Lewis gives some helpful insight in his book “Reflections on the Psalms.” 

    This is a long excerpt, but I think it’s incredibly powerful and helpful. 

    C.S. Lewis

    Lewis says:

    “The miserable idea that God should in any sense need, or crave for, our worship like a vain woman wanting compliments, or a vain author presenting his new books to people who never met or heard of him…”

    Lewis goes on to say: 

    “Even if such an absurd Deity could be conceived, He would hardly come to us, the lowest of rational creatures, to gratify His appetite. I don’t want my dog to bark in approval of my books….”

    “But the most obvious fact about praise – whether of God or anything – strangely escapes me. I thought of it in terms of a compliment, approval, or the giving of honour. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise unless (sometimes even if) shyness or the fear of boring others is deliberately brought in to check it.”

    “The world rings with praise – lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favorite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favourite game – praise of weather, wines, dishes, actors, motors, horses, college, countries, historical personages, children, flowers, mountains, rare stamps, rare beetles, even sometimes politicians or scholars. I had not noticed how the humbles, and at the same time most balanced and capacious minds, minds, praised most, while the cranks, misfits and malcontents praised least…”

    I’ll pause from the quote for a moment. 

    So what Lewis is saying is that he used to think of God like a woman needing to be complimented, but he realized that truly enjoying anything ultimately results in praise. 

    We praise what we love. 

    Lewis says: 

    “I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completed the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed. It is frustrating to have discovered a new author and not to be able to tell anyone how good he is; to come suddenly, at the turn of the road, upon some mountain valley of unexpected grandeur and then to have to keep silent because the people with you care for it no more than for a tin can in the ditch; to hear a good joke and find no one to share it with.”

    Lewis says that “the worthier the object, the more intense the delight.” 

    And one final quote from a few paragraphs later, Lewis says “The Scotch catechism says that man’s chief end is ‘to glorify God and enjoy him forever.’ But we shall then know that these are the same thing. Fully to enjoy is to glorify. In commanding us to glorify Him, God is inviting us to enjoy him.” 

    The byproduct of knowing and loving an infinite, almighty, eternal, holy, and righteous God is that we glorify him. 

    Because to glorify anything else is to glorify something less than God. That is first of all sin, but it is also aiming short of what is greater. ,


    Verse 17, the Lord says to Pharaoh: 

    17 You are still exalting yourself against my people and will not let them go. 18 Behold, about this time tomorrow I will cause very heavy hail to fall, such as never has been in Egypt from the day it was founded until now.

    Once again, we see God’s power that he can predict the timing of this plague. 

    But even in this warning, the Lord tries to give some gracious advice. 

    1.  The Egyptians warned 

    19 Now therefore send, get your livestock and all that you have in the field into safe shelter, for every man and beast that is in the field and is not brought home will die when the hail falls on them.” ’ ” 

    So they’re warned about the great hailstorm that’s coming and also warned to bring the livestock into some sort of shelter. 

    It’s also ironic that the passage tells them to “send” their livestock into shelter. 

    We saw in a previous plague that Pharaoh sent people to investigate the effects of one of the plagues in Egypt yet he wouldn’t send the Israelites into the wilderness. 

    Here, he’s told to send his livestock into shelter. 

    But still he won’t send the Israelites into the wilderness. 

    They’re all continuing to use the same Hebrew word for send.

    Verse 20:

    20 Then whoever feared the word of the Lord among the servants of Pharaoh hurried his slaves and his livestock into the houses, 21 but whoever did not pay attention to the word of the Lord left his slaves and his livestock in the field. 

    It’s interesting that among Pharaoh’s servants, some do believe in the Word of the Lord here. Some take the advice and do bring in the animals. 

    Now the phrase that they feared the word of the Lord is found only here in the entire Old Testament. 

    The Bible talks a lot about a fear of the Lord. 

    But here, it talks of a fear of the Word of the Lord. 

    Does that mean that they had faith? 

    I don’t know if the text gives us enough to say that definitively, but as I’ve pointed out before, Exodus tells us that there were at least some Egyptians who did become followers of the Lord. 

    When the Israelites prepare to leave Egypt in Exodus 12, the passage refers to a mixed multitude. 

    Exodus 12:37 mentions the Israelites:

    37 And the people of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children. 

    But then the following verse says: 

    38 A mixed multitude also went up with them, and very much livestock, both flocks and herds.

    The point is that there are people who are not ethnically Jewish who are part of the Exodus. 

    And there will be other references to non-Israelites. 


    Exodus 12:48: 

    If a stranger shall sojourn with you and would keep the Passover to the Lord, let all his males be circumcised. Then he may come near and keep it; he shall be as a native of the land. But no uncircumcised person shall eat of it

    So what that’s saying is that if a non-Israelite male wants to become Jewish, once he’s circumcised, he will be treated just like any other Israelite. 

    And then there are people who are not Israelites that we see elsewhere in the Bible. 

    Melchizedek, Caleb, Rahab, Ruth, the Queen of Sheeba, the Samaritans, among others. 

    Even in the Old Testament, when you have a defined people of God in Israel, there is still a message for the world that God can redeem them. 

    The New Testament has much less emphasis on a specific land, but instead focuses on a gospel that is for the whole world. 

    And it’s possible that we get one of the earliest glimpses of this in Exodus 9 as some of Pharaoh’s people begin to take seriously the Word of the Lord. 

    In following his instruction, it does show a certain deference to God. 

    So some Egyptians take the word seriously. Their livestock is protected. 

    Others disregard the warning of a storm. 

    Keep in mind that the threat of a thundering hail storm would seem just about as probable in the middle of Egypt as we would feel about being told a volcano was going to erupt and cover us all in ashes. 

    That might be a slight exaggeration, but not by much. 

    The part of Egypt that the Exodus events are taking place in receives on average far less than an inch of rain per year, and sometimes no rain. 

    So our idea of a big summertime thunderstorm is pretty rare there. 

    But with seeing the other plagues, even as improbable as a hailstorm might have seemed, some took it seriously. 

    We come to our third scene. 

    The plague.

    Seventh plague: hail

    Verses 23-26: 

    23 Then Moses stretched out his staff toward heaven, and the Lord sent thunder and hail, and fire ran down to the earth. And the Lord rained hail upon the land of Egypt. 24 There was hail and fire flashing continually in the midst of the hail, very heavy hail, such as had never been in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation. 

    25 The hail struck down everything that was in the field in all the land of Egypt, both man and beast. And the hail struck down every plant of the field and broke every tree of the field. 26 Only in the land of Goshen, where the people of Israel were, was there no hail. 

    Incredible destruction. 

    Thunder. 

    The passage says lightning ran down from heaven. I take that to mean lightning. 

    And hail. 

    I once saw a hailstorm when I was at Trinity basically cover the ground in a couple minutes. 

    It was unlike anything I’d ever seen before. 

    A few things to note about this seventh plague. Hail is often seen in the Bible as a sign of divine judgment. We see that in books ranging from such as Joshua, Psalms, Isaiah, and Ezekiel. 

    The passage says that the hail destroyed crops, but it’s actually the same Hebrew word for vegetation that’s used in creation, once again showing the uncreation that is happening in the plagues. 

    And as we again have seen in other plagues, this is an attack on various Egyptian deities over the sky and over weather. 

    The Lord is showing his power over all of them. 

    Pharaoh wants to talk to moses. 

    Verse 27: 

    27 Then Pharaoh sent and called Moses and Aaron and said to them, “This time I have sinned; the Lord is in the right, and I and my people are in the wrong.

    Now that’s very significant. Pharaoh acknowledges sin.

    Now we will see that this is short-lived, but it’s interesting that he even begins to acknowledge that his own actions are wrong. 

    Repentance matters. 

    But just saying sorry or saying you’re wrong is not repentance. 

    Repentance also involves a change. 

    Pharaoh asks Moses to plead with the Lord to stop the storm. He says I will let you go, and you shall stay no longer. 

    In verse 29, Moses says that he will plead with the Lord. 

     “As soon as I have gone out of the city, I will stretch out my hands to the Lord. The thunder will cease, and there will be no more hail, so that you may know that the earth is the Lord’s. 

    Moses does this. 

    And the chapter ends in verse 34-35:

    34 But when Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunder had ceased, he sinned yet again and hardened his heart, he and his servants. 35 So the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and he did not let the people of Israel go, just as the Lord had spoken through Moses. 

    Pharaoh had indicated that he was repentant but when it came to putting that repentance into action, we see that he again reneges on the deal. 

    Conclusion 

    The Lord does not desire empty words or meaningless repentance. 

    He doesn’t want empty acknowledgement while we’re still totally going to do what we want and continue in sin. 

    He desires followers who will come before him in worship and reverence. 

    He desires faith. 

    God wants us to recognize our sin and our need for his grace. 

    As David said in Psalm 51:17: 

    17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; 

    a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. 

    And the good news of the gospel is that Jesus welcomes us to come to him. 

    Though we have hard hearts, he promises to remove the heart of stone and give us a heart of flesh. 

    Jesus welcomes us to find grace, and life, and forgiveness in him when we come to him.

    Thanks for listening. I hope this sermon was a blessing. If you liked it, please share and subscribe! 

  • 4 goals I have with every sermon I preach

    4 goals I have with every sermon I preach

    I’ve had the privilege of preaching over 450 sermons. In every sermon, I have four goals and those never change.

    1. To be faithful to the text

    Preaching must begin with the text itself. That might sound like stating the obvious, but it’s not actually where every pastor starts. Many pastors start with an idea “how to be a good parent,” “how to be a good financial steward,” “how to have a happy marriage,” etc. From that thesis, they seek out Biblical texts or passages which support that idea.

    It’s my conviction that the better place to begin in preaching is with a Biblical text itself.

    Sermons around topics can often take or leave the Bible.

    I believe that the best sermons are the ones that are so intimately tied to the Biblical text that they would be incomprehensible without it. The sermon must be grounded in the text. My goal is to let the text speak for itself and to preach that faithfully.

    2. To preach the gospel

    This is just as important as the first goal. Every sermon should be a gospel sermon. Every sermon should be an opportunity to communicate the Good News of Jesus Christ and that we have an offer of grace and forgiveness from a good and loving savior.

    There are two key reasons why every sermon should be a gospel sermon. First, because Christians need to constantly be reminded of the gospel.

    In Romans 1:16-17, Paul says:

    For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” 

    Secondly, there will almost always be someone listening to the sermon who does not actually believe in the gospel. For that reason, every sermon should be taken as an opportunity to proclaim the message of salvation.

    3. To explain how the text applies to life

    If the sermon has no real world application, it’s not a sermon. It’s a lecture!

    The great 20th century expositor and preacher John Stott said “if there is no summons, there is no sermon.” His point was that if a sermon isn’t calling on the congregation to do something, it’s not truly a sermon.

    Application can be challenging. Good application requires having an understanding of the true heart of the text. If the great takeaway from every sermon is “read the Bible more and pray more,” then it is ultimately lazy preaching. Great preaching must be mining for gold in the passage.

    4. To preach with clarity

    I’ve heard many a sermon that began well and then wandered off into incoherence.

    I’ve been in the middle of sermons and thought “what is the preacher even talking about?” Clarity is important in good preaching.

    I think the easiest way to preach with clarity is to have a clear outline for the sermon. Honestly, a good outline can be one of the biggest challenges of writing a sermon. Studying the passage is the easy part. Arranging the sermon in a logical way is where a lot of the real work of sermon writing comes in. But it’s the difference between a good sermon and a bad sermon.

    Thanks for reading! If you liked this post, please share and subscribe