Episode 5- Wonder Working Power

Today, we are reading through Exodus chapters 5-13 to dive into the 10 plagues on Egypt. We will also be reading Psalm 103:1-12 as well as 2 Corinthians 5:17 NIV. Thanks for joining! 

Transcript

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Hello, welcome to the Full Armor of God podcast. My name is Taylor. I'll be your host. Thank you so much for coming back for more of the Lord's wisdom. I am so excited to jump into week five with you. Last week we talked about Moses being chosen at the burning bush. So it seems fitting to continue this story because it's one of those big ones that is just an integral part of biblical history and it's so, so, so good. So today we are diving into Exodus chapters five through 13. This is a long story. We are definitely not going to read it verse by verse, but I so encourage you, as always, read these chapters with me. Either reading along with me as we go or reading them throughout this week. This is just an incredible story. It is not one to put you to sleep. It is so exciting. There's so much that happens. I can't wait to get into it. But we're going to be reading from Exodus chapters 5 through 13. We are also going to look through Psalm 103 today, and then we're going to take a little verse from 2 Corinthians chapter 12 at the end. Before we get started, I just want to preface a couple of things. The first thing is that when we read the Word, especially for the first time, some things can seem kind of uncomfy, like the 10th plague that we're going to talk about today in Egypt. And it can be easy for us to say, if I were God, that's not how I would have done it. I just wouldn't have done it that way. It seems unfair. Almost as if we're putting God on trial. I want to encourage us today to listen and read with open hearts. God is fully love. God is fully justice. God is fully everything. The second thing I want to remind us of is that throughout the section, we repeatedly hear the words, God hardened Pharaoh's heart. This is not equal. God made Pharaoh not believe. God doesn't make people do anything. And the greatest analogy that I have heard so far is that if a stick of butter and a ball of clay is placed outside in the sun, one of them is going to melt and one of them is going to harden. And that's just like our hearts. Some hearts are like butter, receptive, ready to receive whatever he has for them when they encounter his presence. Other hearts are like clay before the Lord. And the more they are exposed to him, seeing him, hearing him, the more they become closed off to his presence. So let's work today to have soft hearts. And lastly, you're not reading this alone. I am so honored to guide us through today's readings, but as always, I encourage you to read back through these chapters and ask the Holy Spirit to guide you as you do. He is our guide, he is our interpreter, he is the Lord with us, in us, and here to help us through all of it. So you are not reading alone today. All right, with that being said, let's dive right in. Chapter five in Exodus. Moses and his brother Aaron go to Pharaoh and tell him that the God of Israel says to let his people go. Pharaoh responds in verse 2 with, Who is the Lord? That I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord and will not let Israel go. Remember, the Israelites are still enslaved. They are still being worked ruthlessly. The babies are still being thrown into the Nile. And he actually says to take away the straw for making bricks, but not to reduce the quota. He's making their work harder. In verse 8, he says, but require them to make the same number of bricks as before. Don't reduce the quota. They are lazy. That is why they're crying out. Let us go and sacrifice to our God. Make the work harder for the people so that they keep working and pay no attention to lies. How familiar does this sound? Our world today is busy, busy, busy. Every distraction, every to-do, the never-ending list. Just a quick note here that the enemy's goal is to draw us away from the Lord in whatever way, shape, or form possible. There are so many ways to draw us away from the Lord. This world is constantly pulling at our attention. There's so much noise. And it can be very difficult to set aside time in today's busy world and in your busy lives to set aside time with God. But I promise you, it is so much harder to go through your days without Him. That's all I'm going to say on that. Let's move on. Exodus chapter six. The Lord promises deliverance. Moses goes to him and says, What the heck, God? Everyone is so mad at me now because there's more work. Why did you send me to do this? The Lord says in chapter six, verse one, now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh. Because of my mighty hand, he will let them go. Because of my mighty hand, he will drive them out of his country. In verse six, the Lord says, Therefore, say to the Israelites, I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians, and I will bring you to the land. I swore with uplifted hand to give Abraham to Isaac and to Jacob. I will give it to you as a possession. I am the Lord. These statements are huge. These are God's promises to the Israelites and to us. These are called the four I am statements, and they hold so much significance. They are still speaking today. These promises of the Passover, they play a role in Passover today, and they play a role in our salvation today. We're going to circle back to this. Here we are, Exodus chapter seven. The Lord says to Moses in verse 2, You are to say, Everything I command you, and your brother Aaron is to tell Pharaoh to let the Israelites go out of his country. But I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in Egypt, he will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt, and with mighty acts of judgment I will bring out my division, my people, the Israelites. And the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring the Israelites out of it. There's that heart of clay that we've talked about. God already knows my presence alone, my signs and wonders, and the things that I'm doing are going to make Pharaoh's heart more closed off to me. The second part of what God is saying here is that the Egyptians are actually going to learn that I am the Lord through these mighty acts of judgment for how they've treated the Israelites over the last 400 years. They're going to see, I am going to demonstrate that I am the one true God because the Egyptians had a different deity for everything. And these plagues are not random. Each one is targeting and tearing down a false deity that's been worshipped. They have a very specific purpose, and they are not without warning. Moses and Aaron go to Pharaoh every single time before one of these 10 plagues happens, and they say, The Lord, the God of Israel, says, Free my people, let my people go. And Pharaoh says, No. And they tell him, This is what God is going to do. This is the plague that's about to happen. Here's everything that's going to happen. And Pharaoh still says, No, I'm not going to let you go. And then the plague happens exactly as Moses and Aaron said that the Lord said it would happen. We're going to see this played out over the next 10 plagues, how God is targeting every false deity, starting out with the Nile turning into blood. The Egyptians worshiped a God of the Nile. And in this sign, God is rendering that deity powerless. In verse 16 of chapter 7, the Lord says, Then say to him, to Pharaoh, the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has sent me to say to you, Let my people go, so that they may worship me in the wilderness. But until now you have not listened. This is what the Lord says. By this you will know that I am the Lord. With the staff that is in my hand, I will strike the water of the Nile, and it will be changed into blood. The fish in the Nile will die, and the river will stink. The Egyptians will not be able to drink its water. Guess what happens? The staff touches the water, and by the Lord's power, it is turned into blood. The Egyptians cannot drink from it, they cannot eat from it, they cannot bathe in it. It's disgusting. And the god that they worshipped of the Nile had no power to turn this blood back into water. The Egyptians also had a god of fertility, and this god of fertility was symbolized by a deity with the head of a frog. Now, the plague of frogs was, you guessed it, in direct attack against this false deity. So in chapter 8, verse 2, the Lord tells Moses and Aaron to go to Pharaoh once again, and he says, If you refuse to let them go, I will send a plague of frogs on your whole country. This is not just some little hippity hoppities. Verse 3 the Nile will teem with frogs. They will come up into your palace and your bedroom and onto your bed, into the houses of your officials and on all your people, and in your ovens, in your kneading troughs. The frogs will come up on you and your people and all your officials. Then the Lord said to Moses, Tell Aaron, stretch out your hand with your staff over the streams and canals and ponds and make frogs come up on the land of Egypt. And they do. Pharaoh summons Moses and Aaron in verse 8 and says, Pray to the Lord to take the frogs away from me and my people, and I will let your people go to go offer sacrifices to the Lord. Moses tells him, Pick the time. I'll give you the honor of setting the time for me to go and pray that the frogs are taken away. Pharaoh says, Tomorrow. Moses replied, It will be as you say, so that you may know that there is no one like the Lord our God. I love this. But when Pharaoh saw that there was relief, because all the frogs died, they died and they were in heaps. They had to sweep up these piles and piles of dead frogs. Remember that fertility deity who was symbolized by a frog? No power over the frogs coming into the land, no power over the frogs dying in the land. In verse 15, but when Pharaoh saw that there was relief, he hardened his heart and would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the Lord had said. This brings us to the plague of gnats and then the plague of flies right after that. In both of these, and every plague after, God makes a distinction and he tells Pharaoh through Moses and Aaron that the land of Goshen, which is within Egypt, where the Israelites reside, will not be touched by this plague, so that you may know that he really is the Lord God Almighty. The Egyptians worship a God of the earth, of the dust of the earth. And when Aaron struck the dust of the ground and it turned into gnats, it was showing that this deity had no power over the land. God's power is manifested and he's showing them I actually have reign over all of this. I am the God of the universe, and I am distinctively setting apart my people in the land of Goshen. So Pharaoh gets irritated with the flies. He summons Aaron and Moses and says, Fine, you can worship your God, but don't go far, do it here in the land. And Moses says, That wouldn't be right because the sacrifices that we're going to offer to our God, which includes the sacrificing of cows and bulls, which were considered sacred in ancient Egypt. They were considered symbols of motherhood and fertility and nourishment. They wouldn't dare sacrifice a cow or a bull. And the Israelites were like, Well, that's pretty much the main thing that we sacrifice. So if we did that in the land, we would be seen as detestable in the eyes of the Egyptians, and they would stone us on site. They would kill us for killing a cow. So he says, We have to go into the wilderness. And Pharaoh basically says, like, okay, fine, fine, fine, but just pray for me that the flies go away. And they do, and Pharaoh's heart is hardened once again. This brings us to plague number five, the plague on livestock. Again, the Lord makes a distinction telling Pharaoh that the Israelites' animals will remain untouched throughout this plague. There was a god depicted by a cow that the Egyptians worship, and another depicted by a bull, and they could not protect their sacred animals. In verse six of chapter nine, and the next day the Lord did it. All the livestock of the Egyptians died, but Pharaoh investigated and found that not even one of the animals of the Israelites had died, yet his heart was unyielding, and he would not let the people go. We're gonna skip ahead to plague number seven, the plague of hail. Again, God tells him, This is exactly what's going to happen, so that you may know that my power may be manifest. The Egyptians worship a god of like hail and thunder and lightning. And God says, I am going to send a hail storm like you have never seen before. I could have wiped you off the face of the earth at this point, but I am showing my power through all these signs, all these wonders, all these plagues, all these mighty acts of judgment. I am showing my power so that you may know and that the world may know, us who are reading it may know that He is really God. He is the real deal. He tells Moses and Aaron to tell Pharaoh, bring your livestock in, give orders to bring every animal and every person you have out in the field under shelter, because this hail is going to be unlike anything Egypt has ever seen since the day it was founded. And what happens is that the hail comes and it destroys everything. Everything is destroyed except for those who actually took shelter. Everyone else and everything else, not only the animals and the people, but also the crops, like everything was destroyed by this insane hailstorm that God sent. In verse 27, then Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron. This time I have sinned, he said to them, The Lord is in the right, and I and my people are in the wrong. Pray to the Lord, for we have had enough thunder and hail. I will let you go. You don't have to stay here any longer. Verse 29, Moses replied, When I have gone out of the city, I will spread out my hands in prayer to the Lord. The thunder will stop, and there will be no more hail, so that you may know that the earth is the Lord's. But I know that you and your officials still do not fear the Lord God. In verse 34, when Pharaoh saw that the rain and hail and thunder had stopped, he sinned again. He and his officials hardened their hearts, and they would not let the Israelites go. This brings us to chapter 10, the plague of locusts. It just keeps going. Moses and Aaron tell Pharaoh again, this is what the Lord says in verse 3. How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? Let my people go so that they may worship me. If you refuse to let them go, I will bring locusts into your country tomorrow. He says they're gonna absolutely destroy everything in their path, and they're gonna take over your entire land. Pharaoh's officials actually step in here and they say, How long will this man be a snare to us in verse seven? Let the people go so that they may worship the Lord their God. Do you not yet realize that Egypt is ruined? In verse 8, Moses and Aaron were brought back to Pharaoh. Go worship the Lord your God, but tell me who will be going. Moses answered, We will all go. The old, the young, the women, the children, our cattle, our livestock, everyone, everything. Pharaoh said, If I let you go along with your women and children, no, have you only the men go and worship the Lord since that's what you've been asking for. Pharaoh was absolutely mimicking our world, saying, Give only part of your heart to the Lord. You still belong to me as my slave. You can give a little piece of yourself to God, but don't give all of yourself to him fully. Continuing on in chapter 10, this is the ninth plague, the plague of darkness. Once again, God is setting apart the Israelites in that the Israelites have light and the rest of Egypt does not. They are in complete and utter darkness. This is also demonstrating God's power over it all, over light and dark. The Egyptians worshipped the god uh Ra, the sun god, and he was supposed to be the god of the sun and over all creation. God is showing them no, I am the god of all creation, and I have power and dominion over all of it. I can make this area light while I make the rest of this area dark because I am he. I am the great I am. Okay. Pharaoh's not having any of it. Last time he said, you can take just the men and go worship. You can give a piece of yourself to God. This time, in plague number nine, he says, Okay, okay, you can take your women and your children, but leave me your flocks, leave me all your cattle. Back in that day and age, what was cattle? It was your livelihood. That's how you provided for your family. And so the more cattle you had, the higher status and the more well off you were. So Pharaoh says, like, sure, you can give, you can give a little bit more of yourself to the Lord, but leave this part to me. It's the control that Pharaoh wants over the Israelites. And it's the same control that Satan wants to have over our lives. It mimics our world today of, yeah, that's great. Go to church on Sundays, enjoy it. But the other six days of the week, those are for you. Those are not for God. Do whatever you want, those six days, because Sunday you can clean up and make it look nice. Don't let God into your finances, don't let God into your marriage, don't let God into your work life. Does this sound familiar? I mean, come on now. This brings us to the tenth plague, the final one. Leading up to this, God has been displaying sign after sign, plague after plague. And Moses and Aaron have gone to Pharaoh before every single one and said, This is how it's gonna go if you don't release the Israelites. You're gonna see God's power and all this judgment is coming upon you. And Pharaoh hasn't listened. He's been annoyed and he said, You can give a little part of yourself, but you're not fully going. I'm not fully letting you out from under my control. This is going to be the plague that pushes the Israelites all the way out of Egypt. God tells Pharaoh through Moses and Aaron that the firstborn of every male in Egypt is going to die in this tenth plague. From the firstborn of Pharaoh to the firstborn of the female slave to the firstborn of all the animals in Egypt, and there's going to be a loud wailing, louder than has ever been before in Egypt, and there ever will be. But he again sets apart the Israelites, saying, In this land that the Israelites live in, within Egypt, there's going to be no sound, because they will not be touched by this plague. This plague is for you, not for them. Keep in mind, God is fully just. And he said from the beginning, You will see my judgment come upon Egypt. Last week we talked about Moses's history. And when he was born, Pharaoh instructed all the Hebrew midwives if it's a girl, you can let her live. But if it's a male, you have to kill it. And they didn't do that, they didn't listen. Thank the Lord. So the solution that Pharaoh had was to throw every male that was born into the Nile. This is God's judgment on that. And it's a difficult word, right? But God's fully justice and he's fully mercy and love. He's fully everything. So He's He wouldn't be a just God if He let this go. But he also wouldn't be a merciful God if He didn't give them a warning, if He didn't give them a way out of His wrath and His judgment. He said, I am going to judge Egypt for everything that they've done. I'm going to judge them. And my power is going to be manifest. I am going to strip away and expose all of their false deities and really show them who God is. It's me. And he tells them every time exactly what is going to happen. He gives them a warning every time. He tells Pharaoh every time if you just let the Israelites go, this will not happen. Otherwise, this is going to happen. And it happens that way every time. So God is fully justice, but he's also fully mercy. What happens next is called the Passover. The Passover is a pivotal moment in the Israelite history, in biblical history, and in our history who share this faith. But it is fulfilled in Jesus Christ. We will do another episode, a full episode on this, because there is so much here. But we're going to finish out this story. It's not where it ends, but we're going to finish out this Passover story. Now, Moses is instructed to tell the Israelites to select a Passover lamb. This Passover is to be celebrated in this way every single year for generations to come. And then it's fulfilled in Jesus. It's so good. So Moses instructs the Israelites select your Passover lamb, take a branch of hyssop, dip it in the lamb's blood, and paint it on your doorframes so that when God's judgment passes over Egypt, this destroyer that God sends in Egypt to go and strike every firstborn, they will see the blood on the doorframe and pass over your house. And just like every plague before this, all other nine plagues, God did what he said he would do. And all the first Firstborns of Egypt were struck at midnight. So that night, Moses and Aaron are summoned by Pharaoh, and he says, Get out, take everything with you and leave now. This is not where the story ends. This is only the beginning of the Israelites story. Those 12 tribes, those 12 brothers that turned into 12 tribes that are now the Israelites. This is the very starting point of their story. And there are so many more incredible works that God performs in and through and for them. And we are going to dive into all of it. But I just want to remind us that God has been faithful in fulfilling his word. I want to point us back to those four I am statements that he said before any of these plagues started. He told Moses to tell the Israelites these four I am statements. And these are promises to not only the Israelites, but also to us. And they don't just apply during the plagues, they apply to their whole story afterwards, and they apply to us as well. So that first I am statement is I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. He is saving them from bondage. He says, I am going to sanctify you. Sanctifying means being made holy. Being made holy means being set apart, being set apart from our old life, set apart from slavery and sin. I will bring you out from under the yoke. I will take away your slavery. I will bring you out from that place. The second statement is I will free you from being slaves to them. God not only removes them from slavery physically, he is promising to get the sin out of them. He's taking them out of Egypt and He's taking the Egypt out of them. There were generations, 430 years worth of false worship for God to free them from. He's calling them back to himself, showing them firsthand, look, I am the Lord. I am the one and the only. And I am going to show you through these mighty acts. And when we get out of Egypt, I'm going to get the Egypt out of you. And you're going to continually rely on me. And I will continually show up for you. The third statement, I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. He didn't just save us from sin, he saves us for a purpose. He restores us back to his original design back in Genesis in chapter 12, verses 1 through 3. God promises Abraham land and descendants and universal blessing. God is saying, I'm getting you back on track for the thing that I set you apart for, restoring to you, to the promise that I swore to Abraham. The Israelites were not living their best plan that God had for them. They could have just said, I'm a slave and I'm in Egypt, but I'm alive, or us saying, I'm living in this cycle of sin and brokenness that I cannot get out of. But you know, I guess it's part of life. Everyone deals with this. But God says, I have so much more for you than this. I have so much more for you than false hope. I have so much more for you than disappointment. I have so much more for you than staying in your comfort zone. And the fourth statement is, I will take you as my people, and I will be your God. It's back to that personal relationship with the Lord. He is with us, he is for us, and he keeps his promises. He is true to his word. These I am statements, these are promises to us today. In Psalm 103, this is a Psalm of David, verses 1 through 12, it says, Praise the Lord, my soul, all my inmost being, praise his holy name. Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagles. The Lord works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed. He made known his ways to Moses, his deeds to the people of Israel. The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever. He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far he has removed our transgressions from us. God loves us so much. He is fully just and he enacts his perfect judgment and justice. But he is fully love and he is fully mercy. In 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 17, it is such good news. It says, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come, the old has gone, the new is here. Christ has set us free, free from sin, redeemed and restored, called according to his purpose. Friends, God is so good. He gives us the free will to choose him or not. He is slow to anger and abounding in love. He is true to his word and his promises, and he promises us a way out of our sin into freedom, not just for a life of mediocre existence, but for life to the fullest in him as he designed. My prayer for us this week is that we would continue to have soft hearts towards the Lord and to experience his wonderworking power as we step out of our sin, out of our comfort zone, and into the best that he has for us. I hope you feel encouraged after today's message. And I cannot wait to see you next week. God bless. But I know that you and your officials still do not fear the Lord God.