WEBVTT 00:00:00.020 --> 00:00:00.580 Running everyone. 00:00:00.580 --> 00:00:05.091 Go ahead and turn your Bibles to Exodus, chapter seven. 00:00:05.091 --> 00:00:10.323 While I get set up here. 00:00:10.323 --> 00:00:13.711 How many of you guys have a pencil or a pen along? 00:00:13.711 --> 00:00:20.489 Raise your hand Hi above your ears, okay, so about a fourth of you, okay. 00:00:20.489 --> 00:00:25.451 So pull those out and I'm going to ask you guys to use those a little bit later. 00:00:25.451 --> 00:00:29.650 Then I'm going to get set up here real quick and then we get started. 00:00:29.650 --> 00:01:28.447 I was, I should have done this earlier, um, but I saw like I already disrupted the ladies Sunday school class enough by dropping my my gear down the steps back there. 00:01:28.447 --> 00:01:49.228 All right, isaac, is there any way I could plug this singing back there? 00:01:49.228 --> 23:50:56.322 I don't think I have the right connection here. 23:50:56.322 --> 00:02:49.518 No-transcript, all right, sorry about that. 00:02:49.518 --> 00:02:53.748 So open up your Bibles to Exodus, chapter 7. 00:02:55.120 --> 00:03:20.347 So at Grace's point, over the past I'll probably I don't know six months I've been preaching through the book of Exodus and it's been a really, really enjoyable time, for me at least, just digging into the story of how God formed His people, made them into a nation, and how he establishes His laws and establishes Israel as a nation, as His chosen people. 00:03:20.347 --> 00:03:26.610 Exodus opened up with the children of Jacob settling into Egypt. 00:03:26.610 --> 00:03:40.760 We saw them multiply, increase greatly, so much so that the king of Egypt enslaved them, felt threatened by them, enslaved them and ended up actually killing a lot of the Hebrew boys. 00:03:40.760 --> 00:03:56.673 We saw, in chapter 3 of Exodus, god revealing His name to Moses and saying that this is the name, this is my name and this is the name that I want to form a people around. 00:03:56.673 --> 00:04:05.573 And we saw him call Moses to go back into Egypt to deliver his people. 00:04:05.573 --> 00:04:08.022 And Moses struggled with that. 00:04:08.022 --> 00:04:19.093 We saw five or six different times that Moses questioned God and really wrestled with, struggling to go back to Egypt and follow through. 00:04:19.093 --> 00:04:25.658 But finally, when Moses ended up saying, okay, god, I'll go back, he goes back. 00:04:25.658 --> 00:04:45.666 He confronts Pharaoh and Moses, fully expecting God to move and follow through on his promise to deliver his people, ends up being very disappointed Because, instead of the children of Israel being delivered, moses ends up or Pharaoh ends up, making things a lot worse for the children of Israel. 00:04:45.666 --> 00:04:50.547 And my last sermon we ended in chapter 5. 00:04:50.547 --> 00:05:03.245 Chapter 5, we looked at the question that Moses asked oh Lord, why have you done this evil to these people? 00:05:03.245 --> 00:05:15.548 You have not delivered your people at all, you haven't kept your end of the bargain, and we saw Moses really struggle with that question. 00:05:16.800 --> 00:05:35.612 Today we're going to see God pour out His judgment on Egypt, on Pharaoh and on the gods of Egypt, and what we're going to look at is the 10 acts of judgment, or what we commonly call the 10 plagues. 00:05:35.612 --> 00:05:38.439 This is a lot of ground to cover. 00:05:38.439 --> 00:05:43.872 We're going to look at Exodus, chapter 7, all the way through the end of chapter 11. 00:05:43.872 --> 00:06:15.225 Now I'm not going to read the text because we'd be here all day, but what I want to do as we go through these 10 acts of judgment or plagues is, before we actually look at it, I want to give you guys like 20 seconds before each plague to briefly look at the text, skim it maybe, look at what jumps out to you, and then I'll give you guys two things to underline or highlight. 00:06:15.225 --> 00:06:19.459 If you have a pencil or a pen or a highlighter, all right. 00:06:19.459 --> 00:06:23.247 So what are these plagues that? 00:06:23.848 --> 00:06:26.994 We've heard these stories from the time that we were kids. 00:06:26.994 --> 00:06:29.646 They're some of the most memorable stories in Sunday school. 00:06:29.646 --> 00:06:33.084 They really captivate our imagination. 00:06:33.084 --> 00:06:40.824 There are 10 acts of judgment. 00:06:40.824 --> 00:06:45.187 The Bible project Tim Ackie calls them 10 acts of decreation. 00:06:47.199 --> 00:07:02.427 In Genesis 1, we see God form order, beauty out of nothing, out of chaos actually, and God takes the chaos that is there. 00:07:02.427 --> 00:07:07.108 He forms everything that we see in the universe today. 00:07:07.108 --> 00:07:12.610 It brings order and beauty and thriving out of all of this chaos. 00:07:12.610 --> 00:07:24.771 What happens in the plagues and what we're going to look at today is a reversing of that and an undoing of that and a reverting back to that chaotic order. 00:07:24.771 --> 00:07:35.302 Look at what happens when humans are left up to their own devices, when they oppose God and stand in opposition to God. 00:07:35.302 --> 00:07:42.091 What happens to the order that God has ordained? 00:07:46.160 --> 00:07:50.961 One thing I want to look at a couple of things I actually want to look at is around this. 00:07:50.961 --> 00:08:06.663 So I'm not like an Egyptian scholar, but there's some really interesting things around the culture and the context of ancient Egypt, specifically around their worldview, around some of their gods. 00:08:06.663 --> 00:08:13.031 Now some people try to connect each plague to a certain Egyptian god. 00:08:13.031 --> 00:08:14.444 I'm not going to do that today. 00:08:14.444 --> 00:08:16.365 The Egyptians had gods for everything. 00:08:16.365 --> 00:08:24.168 They had over 2,000 gods, I think, throughout history and they had gods for everything. 00:08:24.168 --> 00:08:26.927 So I'm not going to try to do that today. 00:08:26.927 --> 00:08:27.949 We just don't have enough time. 00:08:28.240 --> 00:08:39.511 But there are a couple aspects of Egyptian, ancient Egypt culture that I think can help make sense of these 10 flags today. 00:08:39.511 --> 00:08:42.447 Number one is this idea of mat. 00:08:42.447 --> 00:08:53.460 It's M-A-A-T mat and mat permeated everything, like it was central to the ancient Egypt worldview. 00:08:53.460 --> 00:08:58.171 And it was this idea that mat sort of encompassed all things. 00:08:58.171 --> 00:09:06.789 It sort of comprised the concepts of truth and balance and order in the universe. 00:09:06.789 --> 00:09:20.811 And mat was found in the natural universe, it was found in the cosmos, in the heavens, it was found in the law, in the state, in morality, in justice. 00:09:20.811 --> 00:09:36.582 Mat, was maintained, was basically cosmic order and in the Egyptian mind, mat bound everything together and without mat everything would descend back into chaos. 00:09:36.582 --> 00:09:50.222 Now the role of Pharaoh, of the king of Egypt, was to maintain mat in his role as the head of state. 00:09:50.222 --> 00:10:11.287 He maintained mat by making sure that the temple and religious practices were performed on a daily basis, making sure that order was maintained in the state, making sure that his whole empire was somehow under control. 00:10:11.287 --> 00:10:38.788 And he was primarily responsible, was the only human, I guess, intermediary between the Egyptian gods and the humans and in essence was like the highest priest of all the priests and he delegated the temple duties, the temple and religious, I guess, and civic rituals down to lower sort of lower priests. 00:10:38.788 --> 00:10:45.091 And if they maintained this mat was maintained, cosmic order was maintained. 00:10:46.179 --> 00:10:51.787 Anyways, we're going to see that all be undone today in these ten plagues. 00:10:51.787 --> 00:11:07.133 So just a little bit about how these ten plagues are structured, how the text itself is structured. 00:11:07.133 --> 00:11:14.341 So there's some really interesting parallels in the structure and how these plagues are laid out. 00:11:14.341 --> 00:11:30.966 So we have number one, we have sort of an introduction to the series of ten plagues, and that is found in, if you look at chapter seven, verses eight through thirteen, we see Moses and Aaron confront Pharaoh. 00:11:30.966 --> 00:11:34.245 Pharaoh says prove yourself by working a miracle. 00:11:34.245 --> 00:11:40.471 You take their staff, that Moses staff, and throw it down and it ends up becoming a serpent. 00:11:40.471 --> 00:11:48.472 And next the Egyptian magicians, the Egyptian magicians, they also do the same thing. 00:11:48.472 --> 00:11:53.951 They're able to replicate that same, I guess, sign. 00:11:53.951 --> 00:12:00.871 But then we know how that Moses staff or Aaron staff swallows up the other staffs. 00:12:00.871 --> 00:12:14.426 And this would have been, I think, a foreboding warning, a little bit of a preview of what's to come, and this sort of serves as an introduction to the ten plagues. 00:12:19.720 --> 00:12:39.243 Next we have the nine plagues, one through nine, one being the bloody Nile, and I actually just wrote them up here because there's some interesting structure to these nine plagues, the tenth plague ends up being the death of the firstborn and that we're going to look at that at a later sermon. 00:12:39.243 --> 00:12:46.986 That serves as almost like a culminating act of justice, almost an entirely separate plague. 00:12:46.986 --> 00:13:00.563 So the way that these nine plagues that we'll look at today are structured and I found this from the Bible project I found this very, very interesting. 00:13:00.563 --> 00:13:20.081 So the structure of these nine plagues are there's three cycles or three sets of three, and there's some interesting parallels found within these three sets or three cycles of plagues. 00:13:20.081 --> 00:13:38.572 And if you look at plagues one through three, we have the first cycle, the first set is the bloody Nile, the frogs and the gnats. 00:13:38.572 --> 00:13:45.027 The second cycle then would be the flies, the livestock dying, and then the boils. 00:13:45.027 --> 00:13:49.144 The third cycle then is the hail, the locus and the darkness. 00:13:50.254 --> 00:14:11.684 And when you line these three sets or cycles of plagues up, the first plague in each of those cycles, there's something really interesting that I found was that Moses, in each of these three plagues, moses, actually, we'll just look at it once. 00:14:11.684 --> 00:14:15.418 Look at verse 14 of chapter 7. 00:14:15.418 --> 00:14:31.957 Go to Pharaoh, verse 15, go to Pharaoh in the morning as he is going out to the water, stand at the bank of the Nile to meet him and take in your hand the staff that turned into a serpent. 00:14:31.957 --> 00:14:39.676 So the first plague of each of these three cycles the bloody Nile, the flies and the hail. 00:14:39.676 --> 00:14:48.187 All three have that same language of Moses going out to meet Pharaoh by the Nile. 00:14:48.187 --> 00:14:56.187 The second plague of each of these cycles the frogs, the livestock and the locus. 00:14:56.187 --> 00:15:04.278 Moses goes into Pharaoh, either to his house or to his court, to meet Pharaoh directly in his house or court. 00:15:05.735 --> 00:15:13.369 The third plague of these cycles is that the gnats, the boils and the darkness. 00:15:13.369 --> 00:15:15.581 There's no warning message given. 00:15:15.581 --> 00:15:26.129 Like Moses, they're distinct and unique in that there's God and Moses don't give Pharaoh a warning. 00:15:26.129 --> 00:15:33.797 It's just like this is your third strike and you've had your chance and God just pours out his judgment. 00:15:33.797 --> 00:15:50.948 So I thought that was interesting, the way that this is sort of structured, these three, I think, if anything, at least for me, it helped me remember and keep track of the order of them a little bit. 00:15:50.948 --> 00:15:52.359 So that was interesting for me. 00:15:56.359 --> 00:16:14.649 All right, let's start with the first plague, the bloody Nile, go ahead and I want you guys to look, take maybe 10 seconds and 20 seconds, that's not fair and just briefly skim over that plague and sort of. 00:16:14.649 --> 00:16:17.756 I guess keep track of what sticks out to you about that. 00:16:17.756 --> 00:16:46.855 Okay, okay, Okay, okay, okay. 00:16:46.855 --> 00:16:58.109 I should go forward to one more. 00:16:58.109 --> 00:16:59.350 Yeah, right, there, all right. 00:16:59.350 --> 00:17:00.999 So the bloody Nile. 00:17:00.999 --> 00:17:04.260 In the morning, moses met Pharaoh by the water. 00:17:04.260 --> 00:17:09.824 Why does this first act of judgment start at the Nile? 00:17:09.824 --> 00:17:12.000 Why does it begin at the Nile? 00:17:12.000 --> 00:17:13.597 I think there was. 00:17:13.617 --> 00:17:18.146 The Nile River was a source of Egypt's power. 00:17:18.146 --> 00:17:32.684 It was the lifeblood of Egypt and it's probably one of the primary features that made Egypt into the world empire, the world power, that it was the geographic location, the Nile River. 00:17:32.684 --> 00:17:42.219 Every year it would flood up to like 20 miles past the banks, which would make that region incredibly fertile. 00:17:42.219 --> 00:17:46.064 They had a lot of natural resources. 00:17:46.064 --> 00:17:52.185 This is where Egypt got there, where Pharaoh got his trade, his wealth, his power. 00:17:52.185 --> 00:18:03.102 The Nile River was more than anything, was a visible representation of Egypt's power, of Moses power, of Pharaoh's power. 00:18:03.102 --> 00:18:07.800 There's something interesting too in that, I think. 00:18:07.800 --> 00:18:12.780 Why, what is significant about the bloody Nile, the Nile turning into blood? 00:18:14.494 --> 00:18:24.068 Back in Exodus, chapter one, we saw Pharaoh command the death of the Hebrew boys. 00:18:24.068 --> 00:18:25.635 And how did they? 00:18:25.635 --> 00:18:27.702 How were the Hebrew boys killed? 00:18:27.702 --> 00:18:32.778 Anybody Thrown into the Nile? 00:18:32.778 --> 00:18:48.962 And I believe that this, this, this, this plague, or the sign of this judgment, of the Nile turning into blood, was almost like, like Cain and Abel back in in Genesis, the blood of Abel crying out from the ground. 00:18:48.962 --> 00:19:06.726 It would have been a a sign of judgment on Pharaoh that these baby boys that were thrown into the Nile, their blood is crying out, a very visible and foreboding sign of of of judgment. 00:19:06.726 --> 00:19:10.188 Obviously, they didn't have any drinking water. 00:19:10.188 --> 00:19:11.960 The magicians were able to. 00:19:11.960 --> 00:19:18.161 Somehow they found water that hadn't turned into blood and they were able to replicate this same sign. 00:19:18.161 --> 00:19:24.038 But we see Pharaoh's heart remained hardened. 00:19:37.575 --> 00:19:41.464 All right, let's go on to the second, the second plague, the frogs. 00:19:41.464 --> 00:19:45.377 Go ahead and look at that for about 20 seconds and we'll move on to that. 00:19:45.377 --> 00:20:26.881 All right, if you have your pencils or pens, go ahead and like, like, like, like, like, like make either as a mark or a highlight, if you are, are okay with that At verse, at verse 10, where it says where Moses says, be it as you say, so that you may know that there is no one like the Lord, our God. 00:20:26.881 --> 00:20:40.006 We're going to sort of track sort of two themes that run through this whole story, and the first theme is this that that God does these things over and over and over. 00:20:40.006 --> 00:20:54.460 He says that for the reason, in this purpose, that you may know that I am God, that the world may know that I am God, that all the that I am, that there's no one like me in all of the land, and that's a theme that runs through all of this. 00:20:54.460 --> 00:21:10.865 So the second plague is is is the frogs basically come up out of the Nile and invade the land Could you go to the next slide, isaac? 00:21:10.865 --> 00:21:13.018 Thank you Pretty much. 00:21:13.038 --> 00:21:29.661 Invade invade the land, and in verse verses three through Four I don't know Hebrew, but for those of you who do, you can even pick it up a little bit in the English language. 00:21:29.661 --> 00:21:39.699 If you look at the text that this, the language, the way that this was written, almost sounds like frogs hopping a little bit like just like just sort of taking over. 00:21:39.699 --> 00:21:57.317 The Nile shall swarm with the frogs that shall come up into your house and into your bedroom and on your bed, and into the houses of your servants and your people, and into your ovens and your kneading bowls, and the frog shall come up on you and on your people and on all your servants. 00:21:57.317 --> 00:22:01.278 Moses again giving a warning. 00:22:01.278 --> 00:22:04.935 This is what's going to happen and then this is what does happen. 00:22:04.935 --> 00:22:11.160 But it's some really cool language around the way that this is worded, the way that the scriptures word this act. 00:22:11.160 --> 00:22:11.621 It's like this. 00:22:11.621 --> 00:22:26.282 It just sort of keeps going, keeps going and this, this act of judgment, was not it's still pretty low key or low temperature and we're going to see these things sort of escalate. 00:22:27.015 --> 00:22:31.445 There was no, there was no inherent danger, I don't think posed to to Egypt. 00:22:31.445 --> 00:22:36.144 It was just really annoying and just gross. 00:22:36.144 --> 00:22:55.042 I, I have a phobia it's one of my worst phobias other than birds flying into my face, frogs or toads actually toads for sure in the summertime I have this huge fear of stepping on a toad outside on the sidewalk. 00:22:55.042 --> 00:23:03.743 I don't know what I would do if that would happen, but I I scan the sidewalk every time at night time when I'm going out and just making sure there's no toads out there. 00:23:03.743 --> 00:23:10.162 I don't, if I was Pharaoh I would have given up right here, like I would just get out of here, just like just leave. 00:23:10.162 --> 00:23:19.323 But he obviously had a stronger stomach than than me, but no serious danger, just really annoying. 00:23:19.323 --> 00:23:23.833 And we see him in verse eight. 00:23:24.253 --> 00:23:33.403 This is another theme, too, that I want to look at is is is God's incredible, I don't know mercy in the midst of this judge, in the midst of his judgment. 00:23:33.403 --> 00:23:50.102 Verse eight Pharaoh calls Moses and Aaron says plead with the Lord, plead with the Lord, go ahead and underline the word plead with the Lord to take away the frogs from me and from my people and I will let the people go to sacrifice to the Lord. 00:23:50.102 --> 00:24:01.838 And Moses agrees to cry out to the Lord about the frogs and the, and verse 13 says the Lord did according to the word of Moses. 00:24:01.838 --> 00:24:12.541 I'm amazed, as we look through all of this, at God's mercy and his, his long suffering and his, his patience with Pharaoh. 00:24:12.541 --> 00:24:27.406 Time and again, pharaoh will will ask for mercy, will ask Moses to intercede on his behalf, and time and again, god is going to stop the plague and hear Pharaoh's plea. 00:24:27.406 --> 00:24:34.286 So Moses stopped, or God stopped the plagues or this plague. 00:24:34.286 --> 00:24:40.097 The frogs died in the houses, the courtyards, the fields and they gathered up and heaps in the land stank. 00:24:40.097 --> 00:25:02.863 Then, in verse 15, and this is key is that when, when Pharaoh saw that there was respite, when he saw that God had heard his, his cry, his plea through Moses, he saw there was respite, the frogs stopped instead of letting the people go and following through on his on, on his end of the bargain, he ends up hardening his heart. 00:25:02.863 --> 00:25:05.239 He hardened his heart and would not listen to them. 00:25:09.295 --> 00:25:11.663 Let's move on to the third plague, the gnats. 00:25:11.663 --> 00:25:22.416 Go ahead and underline or just just briefly skim over that and mark anything that seems of interest to you. 00:25:22.416 --> 00:25:32.878 Again, this is a third plague in the in the in the first cycle, meaning that this one does not have any warning. 00:25:32.878 --> 00:25:37.181 Moses doesn't give the Egyptians any warning, or Pharaoh any, any warning. 00:25:37.181 --> 00:26:04.931 What's a word in this passage that stands out to you? 00:26:04.931 --> 00:26:14.163 Anybody, finger of God, okay, anybody else. 00:26:14.163 --> 00:26:19.753 Dust, dust, okay, good Dust. 00:26:24.019 --> 00:26:54.365 So, looking at the plagues as as, as acts of of God's order and His creation being undone, I think that the word dust there, I think, alludes back to to Genesis one, creation and man coming out of the dust, and after the fall, god tells Adam when you die to dust you shall return, and dust is, is a picture, or is a representation, or I guess alludes to this idea of death. 00:26:54.365 --> 00:26:56.939 And I think, when, when, what happens? 00:26:56.939 --> 00:27:02.499 Aaron strikes the dust and it goes up, becomes gnats in all the land of Egypt. 00:27:02.499 --> 00:27:09.442 And what's really interesting is that these gnats that came from the dust go and pretty much spread out all over every man and beast. 00:27:09.442 --> 00:27:18.998 It's almost like this, this, this thing of like death being spread out all over Egypt, landing on on on everybody. 00:27:18.998 --> 00:27:33.098 For the Hebrew reader, at least for the Jewish reader, I think that would that would stand out to them as as a, as an act of or a sign of what's to come of this, this death being spread out all over. 00:27:33.795 --> 00:27:37.042 And then, melody, you mentioned the word the finger of God. 00:27:37.042 --> 00:27:45.182 In the first two plagues, the magicians were able to, they were able to replicate the same plagues, the same plagues that Moses had done. 00:27:45.182 --> 00:27:58.820 And this is the first time that they're not able to to to reproduce it and that their response is they're not like hey, we just can't do this, or we're like this is some one of our other gods. 00:27:58.820 --> 00:28:04.939 We're like this is the finger of Yahweh, this is the finger of God. 00:28:04.939 --> 00:28:07.481 So they recognize things are heating up. 00:28:07.481 --> 00:28:12.903 This is not just like abnormal, this is the work of the Hebrews God. 00:28:14.317 --> 00:28:17.164 All right, let's move on to number four, the flies. 00:28:17.164 --> 00:28:19.897 Briefly, look over that underline. 00:28:19.897 --> 00:28:30.381 Underline if you see the word plead for me, and then that you may know those two, those two phrases. 00:28:30.381 --> 00:28:49.957 Okay, so the fourth plague. 00:28:49.957 --> 00:28:55.106 This is the first plague in the second cycle of plagues. 00:28:55.106 --> 00:29:06.163 This goes out to Pharaoh early in the morning, presents himself to Pharaoh by the Nile, by the water, and says let my people go that they may serve me. 00:29:06.163 --> 00:29:15.961 If you will not let my people go, I will send swarms of flies on you and on your servants, on your people and in your houses. 00:29:17.714 --> 00:29:42.748 This idea of swarms, that language of swarms, is repeated over and over here again, and the only other time that that word is used in the Old Testament is during creation, on day I believe it's day five On the yeah, on day five, god creates the waters and the living creatures. 00:29:42.748 --> 00:29:57.247 It says let the waters swarm with the swarms of living creatures, let the birds fly above the earth, the waters swarming with God's creation, god's beauty, his order in Genesis. 00:29:57.247 --> 00:30:14.163 Now Pharaoh is going against that and God is allowing creation to be reverted back to chaotic swarming and instead of a life-giving, like interesting or life-giving thing, it's a chaotic thing. 00:30:14.163 --> 00:30:32.328 So again pleads, and Moses again asks God to work on to remove the swarms of flies. 00:30:32.328 --> 00:30:44.097 And God obeys again, or God answers Moses plea Again, like God's mercy in the midst of all of this judgment, giving him chance after chance after chance. 00:30:44.097 --> 00:30:54.391 All right, for the sake of time I'm going to just go on to number five, the dead livestock. 00:30:56.815 --> 00:31:06.724 In Genesis 1, god said in verse 24, let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kind livestock, creeping things and beasts of the earth. 00:31:06.724 --> 00:31:12.707 This plague is an undoing of that. 00:31:12.707 --> 00:31:29.884 Moses tells Pharaoh Let my people go that they may serve me, and if you don't, the hand of the Lord will fall on your livestock that are in the field the horses, donkeys, camels, herds and flocks. 00:31:29.884 --> 00:31:41.535 And what's really interesting is that God here will make a distinction between his people, their livestock, and the people of Egypt. 00:31:41.535 --> 00:31:49.563 So the Lord said at a time saying Tomorrow the Lord will do this thing in the land. 00:31:49.563 --> 00:31:52.742 All the livestock of the Egyptians die. 00:31:52.742 --> 00:31:58.644 Not one of the livestock of the people of Israel die. 00:31:58.644 --> 00:32:16.027 And that marks a clear line in the sand that God's people are distinct, they are separate from Egypt, and God protects them, watches over them and cares for them. 00:32:16.027 --> 00:32:19.277 All right. 00:32:19.297 --> 00:32:20.442 Number six the boils. 00:32:20.442 --> 00:32:24.644 Again, this is the last plague of the second cycle. 00:32:24.644 --> 00:32:26.862 Moses gives them no warning. 00:32:26.862 --> 00:32:29.780 Pharaoh has given no warning. 00:32:29.780 --> 00:32:34.134 And this is the first plague to actually affect the Egyptian bodies. 00:32:34.134 --> 00:32:45.065 Up until now it's just been like it's been livestock, it's been like like the water frogs, but this is the first one to like affect their bodies. 00:32:45.065 --> 00:33:06.628 So I think that's there's something significant, significant about that, that these plagues are, they're escalating, there's an escalation to this order All right, number seven, the hail, the last three, the hail, the locus and the darkness. 00:33:07.476 --> 00:33:31.778 If you look at your Bibles, just like briefly, look at how long these passages are, there's a lot of text and there's a lot of scripture, that and detail that goes into these three, these three plagues, and there's a like an escalation up to like total destruction where it started off really sort of mild. 00:33:31.778 --> 00:33:37.856 Now, like things are, like, god is pouring out his judgment, his wrath, in for the hail. 00:33:37.856 --> 00:33:44.084 Look at Exodus nine, chapter 20 or verse 25. 00:33:44.084 --> 00:33:58.807 The hail struck down everything that was in the field, in all the land of Egypt, both man and beast. 00:33:58.807 --> 00:34:05.096 That all the hail struck down everything and every plant of the field and broke every tree of the field. 00:34:05.096 --> 00:34:10.307 Only in the land of Goshen, where the people of Israel were, there was no hail. 00:34:10.307 --> 00:34:22.788 All out judgment on the land of Egypt, on the gods of Egypt, on the on on fair, on the king of Egypt, but in the land of Goshen, god's people are untouched. 00:34:22.788 --> 00:34:24.998 It's a powerful distinction. 00:34:24.998 --> 00:34:30.088 People that follow his name, that follow him, worship him. 00:34:30.088 --> 00:34:32.221 That marked distinction. 00:34:32.221 --> 00:34:40.764 And again, with this one, pharaoh pleads with Moses and with, with, with God, he, he, he says this in verse 27. 00:34:40.764 --> 00:34:41.907 He says I have sinned. 00:34:41.907 --> 00:34:51.798 So Pharaoh goes from like, completely like, just ignoring God, ignoring Moses, to coming to a place where he admits I have sinned. 00:34:51.798 --> 00:35:02.166 And again Moses pleads on his behalf and Pharaoh God stops the hail, stops the storms. 00:35:02.166 --> 00:35:08.262 But the part of Pharaoh was hardened, he did not let the people of Israel go. 00:35:08.262 --> 00:35:21.949 All right, the locusts In chapter 10, this is the eighth plague here. 00:35:21.989 --> 00:35:26.503 Whatever the hail hadn't destroyed, the locust did. 00:35:26.503 --> 00:35:28.349 And what's interesting about locusts? 00:35:28.349 --> 00:35:40.545 They I mean they're still a common like, like problem in a lot of sort of like, like Middle Eastern climates, they can come in and like they eat their body weight and food every day. 00:35:40.545 --> 00:35:48.625 So they can come in these swarms and they can destroy miles of crops in a matter of hours, like they eat everything. 00:35:48.625 --> 00:35:50.909 This is what happened here. 00:35:50.909 --> 00:35:53.579 God blew, went from the east. 00:35:53.579 --> 00:35:57.467 These locusts came in completely, destroyed. 00:35:57.467 --> 00:36:04.282 Every leaf and every, every anything that had something growing on it was destroyed. 00:36:04.282 --> 00:36:07.679 Not a green thing remained, either tree nor plant of the field. 00:36:07.679 --> 00:36:20.137 There's another act of de-creation, where God had created all the plants, all the trees, all the all the fruit and seed bearing plants, locusts come in, completely, destroy this. 00:36:20.137 --> 00:36:33.784 And again, pharaoh pleads, pleaded with the Lord, and the Lord turned the wind into a very strong west wind. 00:36:33.784 --> 00:36:42.601 He actually reverses the wind on Pharaoh's behalf, pushes it, pushes the locust, swarm out. 00:36:42.601 --> 00:36:45.465 Not a single locust was left in all of the country. 00:36:45.465 --> 00:36:54.706 And here we see, see Pharaoh's heart again turned against God. 00:36:54.706 --> 00:36:56.768 All right. 00:36:56.909 --> 00:37:01.882 Lastly, the ninth plague darkness. 00:37:01.882 --> 00:37:09.286 Could you go to the next? 00:37:09.286 --> 00:37:11.550 I think the next, yeah. 00:37:11.550 --> 00:37:27.288 So in Egypt, the most powerful God they had about 2000 plus gods, but the most powerful God, the God that was the most well known, was the creator. 00:37:27.288 --> 00:37:29.173 All the other gods came from. 00:37:29.173 --> 00:37:40.411 This God was the sun God and his name was Ra or Ra, and he was considered the king of all the gods. 00:37:43.175 --> 00:38:07.262 And the Egyptians believed, had this idea that the sun God is what kept the universe in order, kept everything working around the clock, and by what would happen is they believed that Ra, the sun God would travel on this like this, this sun boat, this solar like barge, and if you can see on the picture up there, you can see him. 00:38:07.262 --> 00:38:20.666 He's in the middle, he has the head of a ram, he has like a circle above his head, which is the sun, and when you would watch during the day, you'd see the sun come up in the morning and travel across the sky 12 hours and sat again. 00:38:20.666 --> 00:38:26.829 That was Ra in his sun boat, carrying the sun across the horizon. 00:38:26.829 --> 00:38:31.260 At night time, you know, the sun would set and that was Ra in his boat. 00:38:31.260 --> 00:38:33.326 He would go down under, he would go travel. 00:38:33.326 --> 00:39:07.489 They believed he went into the underworld or basically underneath the in the underworld, traveled at night time underneath the world or in the underworld and while he was there he would have to defend himself from the serpent, god or Apophis, who would try to come and basically destroy him, attack him to keep him from coming up again, and every morning he would resurrect and he would. 00:39:07.489 --> 00:39:24.947 Every day that you saw the sun come up in the morning, it was another day that that Ra, the sun God, had defeated, that had survived the underworld and had come up again and basically keeping the world going in in in Mott. 00:39:24.947 --> 00:39:28.030 We know what happens here. 00:39:30.775 --> 00:39:33.342 Verse 21 of chapter 10,. 00:39:33.342 --> 00:39:40.748 The Lord said to Moses stretch out your hand toward the heaven that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, a darkness to be felt. 00:39:40.748 --> 00:39:47.045 So Moses stretched out his hand toward the heaven and there was pitch darkness in all the land of Egypt. 00:39:47.045 --> 00:39:47.987 Three days. 00:39:47.987 --> 00:39:51.804 They did not see one another, nor did anyone rise from his place for three days. 00:39:51.804 --> 00:39:54.981 But all the people of Israel had light where they lived. 00:39:54.981 --> 00:39:57.525 Then Moses. 00:39:57.525 --> 00:40:01.340 Then Pharaoh called Moses and said go, serve the Lord. 00:40:01.340 --> 00:40:04.431 Only your little ones also may go with you. 00:40:04.431 --> 00:40:06.376 Only let your flocks and hers remain behind. 00:40:06.376 --> 00:40:12.411 The Egyptians saw this darkness come over their land. 00:40:12.411 --> 00:40:24.246 The sun God, their most powerful God, the stainer and creator, was no longer coming up in the, in the, in the, in the in the morning, and in their minds their God had been defeated. 00:40:24.246 --> 00:40:27.012 This, this sun God Rah, had been defeated. 00:40:27.012 --> 00:40:33.527 And when they looked over in Goshen, they saw the light still on. 00:40:33.527 --> 00:40:35.360 In Goshen the sun may be shining. 00:40:35.360 --> 00:40:42.447 It was a clear distinction of whose God had won here this contest of gods. 00:40:42.447 --> 00:40:51.224 Yahweh was providing light, sustaining his people, but he had defeated the gods of Egypt. 00:40:51.224 --> 00:41:03.909 In chapter 11, then we see a final plague threatened to Toferro. 00:41:03.909 --> 00:41:12.559 Moses warns God, tells Moses of the coming plague of the death of the firstborn, and he tells them to prepare. 00:41:12.559 --> 00:41:23.289 And we'll look at that one in the next sermon with the Passover and the Exodus, the death of the firstborn. 00:41:24.934 --> 00:41:30.445 Alright, this has been a lot of ground to cover and I actually feel exhausted. 00:41:30.445 --> 00:41:31.619 I don't know if you guys do. 00:41:31.619 --> 00:41:35.742 I think in all of this there's so many details and so many like. 00:41:35.742 --> 00:41:37.025 There's so much here. 00:41:37.025 --> 00:41:40.280 We could spend a whole week studying this. 00:41:40.280 --> 00:41:51.849 I don't want you guys to go away from here with just like all these different pictures and images of sun, god and cool illustrations. 00:41:51.849 --> 00:41:57.987 I think there's two things that I want you guys to take away. 00:41:57.987 --> 00:42:00.514 That is for us today. 00:42:00.514 --> 00:42:01.920 We can learn from this. 00:42:01.920 --> 00:42:07.744 We've seen it throughout this Number one, that God wants to be known. 00:42:08.514 --> 00:42:09.559 He wants to be known. 00:42:09.559 --> 00:42:16.347 He says over and over and over here he says I'm doing this, that all the world may know that I am the Lord. 00:42:16.347 --> 00:42:24.568 He says he tells that to Pharaoh, he tells it to Moses, the Egyptians, the Hebrews. 00:42:24.568 --> 00:42:35.623 Everything he's doing here is that the world may know that I am God, that I'm the creator, sustainer of life, not Pharaoh, not the sun, god, not the other 2000 gods. 00:42:35.623 --> 00:42:38.041 It's me. 00:42:38.041 --> 00:42:40.141 I will sustain my people. 00:42:40.141 --> 00:42:43.478 I want to be known and that's for us today. 00:42:43.478 --> 00:42:47.543 God has made himself known to us through Jesus. 00:42:47.543 --> 00:42:57.467 Jesus gave us the great commission to go out into all the world, making disciples of all nations, teaching them whatsoever. 00:42:57.467 --> 00:42:58.349 I have commanded you. 00:42:58.349 --> 00:43:01.161 This is for us today. 00:43:01.161 --> 00:43:04.344 God wants to be known and he's looking to us to do that. 00:43:04.735 --> 00:43:08.425 Secondly is God is merciful and just. 00:43:08.425 --> 00:43:10.463 We look at the 10 plagues. 00:43:10.463 --> 00:43:14.514 Okay, actually in chapter five we were wondering God, why aren't you doing anything? 00:43:14.514 --> 00:43:19.085 And then we look at the 10 plagues and we're like, okay, god, that's a little harsh, I guess too much. 00:43:19.085 --> 00:43:24.867 And we're never really happy with how God does his judgment. 00:43:24.867 --> 00:43:31.204 We see God's harsh judgment on the land of Egypt, but in the midst of that we see his mercy. 00:43:31.204 --> 00:43:33.019 He's long suffering. 00:43:34.655 --> 00:43:38.463 Time and again he gives Pharaoh and the Egyptians a second chance. 00:43:38.463 --> 00:43:40.166 That's for us. 00:43:40.166 --> 00:43:41.840 That's for us today. 00:43:41.840 --> 00:43:45.481 We like Pharaoh. 00:43:45.541 --> 00:43:47.646 So often we turn our hearts against God. 00:43:47.646 --> 00:43:50.400 We say, no, I'm going to do my own thing. 00:43:50.400 --> 00:43:54.543 And God gives us second chance after second chance. 00:43:54.543 --> 00:44:06.065 But there's coming a day when those second chances will come to an end where God will utterly do away with evil. 00:44:06.065 --> 00:44:13.521 And the only hope that you and I have we'll look at this in the next sermon with the Passover is that it's through the blood of Jesus. 00:44:13.521 --> 00:44:29.188 It's through the blood of Jesus the only hope that you and I have, and that in the midst of God's judgment on evil, there is a way of escape and that if we cry out to God, plead like Pharaoh, god will hear. 00:44:29.188 --> 00:44:34.005 He will reverse judgment through his son, jesus, through his blood. 00:44:34.005 --> 00:44:37.063 I think that's such a powerful takeaway for us. 00:44:37.554 --> 00:44:41.525 And lastly, god's people are distinct. 00:44:43.217 --> 00:45:02.407 We see that with Israel, in the midst of all of this chaos that's happening, his people are set apart and it's a marked difference from the world around them, and you and I are, if we're following Jesus, following God. 00:45:04.291 --> 00:45:08.494 Your neighborhood, if it's a place of darkness, there should be a light at your house. 00:45:08.494 --> 00:45:15.467 People should be able to see our lives and be like there is something distinctly different about them. 00:45:15.467 --> 00:45:47.407 And I believe I don't want to take this too far, but I believe that when people come to Holmes County, they come for furniture, for Swiss cheese, for Park Street pizza, all of that stuff, but I think deep down there's something that they're looking for, that you and I have, and that as much brokenness and as much corruption and messed up, as much brokenness as there is in our community. 00:45:47.407 --> 00:45:56.739 The truth is that many of our lives are based on the redemption and the work of God in our lives and people come for that. 00:45:56.739 --> 00:46:05.945 So if they come for furniture and cheese, let them come, but they're also looking for the distinction that they see in our lives. 00:46:05.945 --> 00:46:11.514 I think that's maybe some takeaways from everything that we looked at today. 00:46:11.514 --> 00:46:13.420 So God bless you all. 00:46:13.420 --> 00:46:16.708 I know this was a lot of ground to cover and I will turn the time over back to Sean.