Lessons From the Exodus Story part 6

And this is our final part of the Exodus story, Lessons from the Exodus. This is part six. Mr. Sash asked me this morning, is this sermon going to be four hours to get the rest of the plagues in?

And I assured him it's not. I'll max out. I'll be done in at least three and a half hours. So just to let you know, we do still have quite a bit of ground to cover there. I was up 11 o'clock last night slashing and burning different details that I'd originally wanted to cover, but just not going to have time for. So we will go ahead and cover this and touch on quite a bit of detail, not quite as much as I wanted to. In preparation for the Passover and for the Feast of Unleavened Bread, we have been going through a lot of the lessons that we learned from the story of the Exodus.

And we've had five previous sermons about that, which are online if you've missed any of those. And today we will continue with part six, the final part of this. Last time we covered several of the plagues in chapter nine and much of chapter ten. We talked about the plague on the livestock, which struck the livestock of the Egyptians, but left the Israelites' livestock untouched.

And we discussed how this was directed at two of the Egyptian gods and goddesses, Ap-Tah and Hathor. And these two gods are often represented in the form of cattle in Egyptian depictions of them. Hathor, you can see here, has a cow's horns with the sun disc in between the horns there. We talked about the plague of the boils, the large painful boils that struck the Egyptian people and the magicians, and how this was directed at two Egyptian gods and goddesses, Thoth, who was the god of intelligence and medical learning, and the goddess Isis.

And then we also talked about the plague of hail, large hail storms accompanied by lightning, which was directed at the sky goddess, Nuth. And then finally, we talked about the plague of locusts that devastated the land. Any vegetation that had survived the plague of the hail was destroyed by the locusts who came through and just stripped the land bare, all the vegetation there, and how this would have been directed toward the god of the fields, Anubis, and also the god of agriculture, Osiris, two of the major Egyptian gods.

And we also talked about a theme that shows up again and again throughout this Exodus story, constant reminders about the importance of remembering, and commands to do specific things to remember, and how without remembering, we lack three very important attributes, which are gratitude, being thankful to God for the things that He has done, wisdom, without remembering we fail to learn from the lessons of history, and also faith. If we don't remember the great things that God has done for us in the past or for others in biblical history, or for others whom we know, we lack that kind of faith that we need.

And then finally, we lift off at the end of the eighth plague, the plague of the locusts, when once again Pharaoh goes back on his word and refuses to free the Israelites from their slavery. So now we come to the ninth plague, and we'll pick it up here in Exodus 10 and verse 21. And this is the plague of darkness. I'll be again, as usual, projecting all the scriptures up here on screen for us. Then the Lord said to Moses, stretch out your hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, darkness which may even be felt.

And some scholars try to find a natural explanation for this plague, and some have assumed that this is perhaps a solar eclipse. But does this description really fit with a solar eclipse? Well, it doesn't because a solar eclipse lasts for how long? A maximum of a few hours. It doesn't last for days as this plague of darkness lasted. It lasted for days. And also, this darkness does not affect the Israelites who were in the land of Goshen right next to the Egyptians.

It doesn't get dark there. And that, of course, would not fit the description of an eclipse either, because an eclipse would darken the land of the Israelites as well. But that does not happen. This is also described here as a darkness which may even be felt. It is so dark, so overwhelming, the blackness of this, that this obviously could not have been an eclipse either, because in an eclipse, as we all know, we've seen them, we've experienced them, had a major one back a year or so ago, and it's still quite light because of all the other ambient and reflected light around us.

You can still read a book, read a newspaper, things like this. So none of this description really fits with an eclipse. So this is obviously a divine supernatural miracle that is taking place directly from the hand of God. Continuing, verse 22, So Moses stretched out his hand toward heaven, and there was thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days. So this last three days, not just a few hours, as an eclipse might have done. He did not see one another, nor did anyone rise from his place for three days.

But all the children of Israel had light in their dwelling. So again, we see this could not have been an eclipse from the description that is given here. And to appreciate this plague a little bit more, we need to understand a bit about what Egypt is like. How many of you have been to Egypt before? Okay, quite a few here scattered around.

And Egypt is a desert country, very hot, very warm. And if you remember going to Egypt, if there is one thing that makes an impression on you about Egypt, it is that the light there is very, very bright. Extremely bright because of the clarity of the atmosphere there. And you feel like wearing not one pair of sunglasses because it's so bright, but two or three pairs.

It is that bright. Overwhelmingly bright, almost blindingly bright. And because of the dryness of the climate, the sun shines there just about virtually all the time. Rarely rains there. There's not a lot of clouds in the sky and so on. And because the sky is so clear, even at night, it is very bright.

You can look up and see very, very bright stars there. And you can see quite clearly then. So this kind of blackness and darkness that is described in this plague, so dark that you can feel the darkness, is just completely beyond the experience of the Egyptians. They're just totally not used to anything like that. They're used to very bright, vivid sunshine there year-round. They've never seen, never experienced any kind of darkness remotely approaching this.

So if you're an Egyptian, just imagine your whole world going suddenly dark, so dark that you can't even see your hand in front of your face there. And the entire world, as you know it, is solid black. You can't see the furniture in your house. You can't see your spouse. You can't see your children. And for people who are used to this bright sunshine 365 days a year, this has to be absolutely terrifying.

You're going to naturally think that the world is coming to an end. Is it ever... are we ever going to see light again? They would have to be asking themselves this. And this plague of darkness, like the other plagues that we've talked about so far, was a judgment on Egypt's religion and its culture, and particularly two of its greatest gods, Amun and Ra. And these gods were actually combined into one god at some point in Egyptian history.

Amun Ra became the god's name. And he was considered the greatest of the gods of Egypt. He was viewed as the creator. He was viewed as the giver of life, the one who flooded the land with the energizing light rays from the sun that would cause the plants to grow, the crops to grow, and all of this. And he was so well known, so highly regarded, that many of the pharaohs incorporated parts of his name into their names.

Names like Ra-masees, Ram-sees, Ra-masees, which means son of Ra. Amun Hotep was another one, meaning Amun is pleased, and the famous Tutankhamun, which means the living image of Amun. So these gods were so well named, the Egyptians, many of the pharaohs, had their names incorporated the names of these gods into their names.

But Amun Ra is powerless in the face of this plague of darkness as well. He is, you might say, nowhere to be seen, literally, in all of this darkness here. And all of the Egyptian gods are powerless, including Egypt's greatest god, Amun Ra. Cannot do anything about this darkness. Continuing with the story then, verse 24, Then Pharaoh called to Moses and said, Go, serve the Lord, only let your flocks and your herds be kept back, let your little ones also go with you.

So Pharaoh, we've talked about his stubbornness before, he still remains stubborn and obstinate, and refuses to concede to all of Moses' terms, which were all going to go, men, women, children, old, young. All of our flocks, all of our herds are going to go with us.

And of course Moses has just told him in verse 9, which we talked about last time, that they need their flocks and herds to go with them because they don't know which animals they're going to need to sacrifice until they get there and God tells them. But Pharaoh is trying to play the hostage game again, which we covered quite a bit last time. Last time he was willing to let the men go, but he was going to keep the women and the children and the elderly behind his hostages to force the men to come back into slavery after going and offering sacrifices to God.

So now Pharaoh is being a little more reasonable. Now he's going to let the Israelites go, but he's going to keep all their flocks and herds there, which again, he's playing hostage. He's keeping hostage of their animals there rather than the parts of the Israelites themselves. But that does not go over well with Moses. Verse 25, Moses said, You must also give us sacrifices and burnt offerings that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God.

So what does Moses do here? What's he saying here? Well, what he's saying is, no, not only are we going to take our animals, you also are going to give us animals to take with us to offer us sacrifices there. And this is a humiliating challenge to Pharaoh because, again, as we've talked about, a lot of the animals at the Egyptians, the Egyptians worshipped a lot of the animals, like the rams, like the cattle, things like that.

So Moses tells them, no, you have to give us some of these animals so we can sacrifice them to our God in the wilderness. And then he says, verse 26, Our livestock also shall go with us, not a hoof shall be left behind. For we must take some of them to serve the Lord our God. And even we do not know with what we must serve the Lord until we arrive there.

So Moses tells Pharaoh, once they get there, then they'll know which animals to sacrifice. So we're not going to leave our animals behind as hostage for you. Verse 27, but again following the pattern, the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he would not let them go. Then Pharaoh said to him, to Moses, Get away from me. Take heed to yourself and see my face no more.

For in the day you see my face you shall die. And the Hebrew behind this take heed literally means watch yourself. And it's issued as a threat. Here, Pharaoh tells Moses, watch yourself, watch your step, because you're treading on dangerous ground, is the way we might phrase it today. So he does give this threat.

And then verse 29, Moses said, You have spoken well, I will never see your face again. So Moses says there is no point in any more negotiating. And in fact, there really had been no point in negotiating, because as we talked about last time, Pharaoh is still going to do what Pharaoh wants to do. And in his heart of hearts, what he wants to do is keep his grip on the Israelites, and to keep them enslaved. And then he goes back on his word and keeps them enslaved. So all that is left at this point is for one more plague to force Pharaoh to release the Israelites once and for all.

And that will happen next with a final plague. So picking up the story now, Exodus 11 and verse 1, the Lord said to Moses, I will bring yet one more plague on Pharaoh and on Egypt. Afterward, he will let you go from here.

When he lets you go, he will surely drive you out of here altogether. So this plague is going to be so severe that Pharaoh is going to drive the Israelites out. Speak now in the hearing of the people and let every man act as he is. Speak now in the hearing of the people and let every man ask from his neighbor and every woman from her neighbor articles of silver and articles of gold. So what happens now is the Israelites are going to be compensated in a small way for their generations of slavery.

They are to the Egyptians. They are told to go and ask from their neighbors, the Egyptians. This again shows the Egyptians and Israelites are living very close together there. So they take gold and silver articles, jewelry, primarily from their neighbors. And the Egyptians, who are at this point quite traumatized by the plagues that have struck them, are going to be more than willing to give these objects to the Israelites. Verse 3, and the Lord gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians.

So a couple of ways of looking at this. Perhaps this phrase, the Lord gave them favor, is now some of the Egyptians are coming to realize the God of the Israelites is much more powerful than the Egyptian gods. And this might lead them to view the Israelites in a more respectful way. Because in the thinking of the ancient world, if your nation were defeated by another nation, what that meant was their gods are more powerful than your gods.

And there's an old saying, might makes right, and that's kind of the way they viewed it there. If you were defeated by another nation, their gods were more powerful than your gods, and therefore you better show some respect toward the gods of that nation. So this would have been part of the thinking of the Egyptians there. They're coming to realize their gods and goddesses are no match for this god Yahweh of the Israelites.

It's interesting the first century Jewish historian Josephus says the Egyptians were willing to give the Israelites anything they wanted, even including their most valuable possessions, which again indicates this is probably jewelry, just to get rid of them. And this certainly seems to be the case here. The Egyptians are desperate to see the plagues ended, and they know that's only going to happen when the Israelites leave.

So they're more than happy to give the Israelites their precious things so that the Israelites will indeed leave. And of course, this gold and silver and precious objects and so on is used later to build the golden calf when they go out into the wilderness. And later the furnishings of the tabernacle. Many items in the tabernacle are made with gold or gold plated there. Where would they get all this gold? Well, it's because they took it from their neighbors just before they left Egypt. Continuing in verse 3, So Moses, because he is representing this great and powerful God, is viewed quite highly.

He has shown he can stand up to Pharaoh and defeat the gods of Egypt. Then Moses said, Thus says the Lord, About midnight I will go out into the midst of Egypt. So this final plague that we're about to cover here, which Moses announces is different from the others, in that there is nothing that Moses and Aaron do to bring on this plague. And also, unlike the earlier plagues, there's no way to explain this is happening by any natural means. It has to be an absolute miracle for it to happen in this way, absolutely the hand of God.

And God, as we'll see, does everything in this plague. Moses doesn't do anything, Aaron doesn't do anything, the Israelites don't do anything. It is entirely the doing of God. Verse 5, And all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the female servant, who is behind the handmill, this is talking about grinding grain for bread, and all the firstborn of the animals.

There have to be very few animals left by this time.

So what we see here is, if you think about it, a parallel with what has happened to the Israelite slaves over the years, because the Israelites could not protect their firstborn, their own children, their own baby males from the Egyptians, who took the Hebrew babies and threw them in the Nile to be drowned or eaten by the crocodiles.

And now we see a parallel, because now the Egyptians are going to see what it was like. As the Israelites were powerless to protect their firstborn, their young children, now the Egyptians are going to see what it feels like to be unable to do anything to save their own children from this last plague here.

We all know that God is a God of love, but God is also a God of justice and of judgment. And what we're about to see in this final plague is justice and judgment. Taking place, Egypt is going to be judged and punished for decades, generations, of crimes against humanity, against their slaves, against the Israelites in particular, and generations of evil will now be punished for those crimes that they have committed.

And all these your servants shall come down to me and bow down to me, saying, Get out, and all the people will follow you. After that, you will go out. Then Moses went out from Pharaoh in great anger. So notice Moses' attitude now. He's fed up. He's had enough. And he leaves Pharaoh with great anger. He's really ticked off at Pharaoh. Pharaoh continually going back on his word and refusing to acknowledge God, refusing to honor his promises to them. He is just completely fed up, as he should be after all that he's been through in his dealings with Pharaoh. Up to this point.

So Moses and Aaron did all these wonders, and that word means miracles. They did all these miracles before Pharaoh, and the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart. And he did not let the children of Israel go out of the land. So this is kind of a summary of what has happened up to this point, that these great miracles had happened. Nine previous dramatic plagues that have devastated Egypt's economy, its livelihood, its animals, all of this. And yet Pharaoh has remained stubborn and has hardened his heart, and has refused to allow the Israelites to be set free. And now there must come one final plague that will be so terrible. It has to be terrible because none of the previous plagues, bad as they were, were enough to convince Pharaoh to let the Israelites go free.

Now we come to chapter 12. Now the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, and now the narrative of the plagues is interrupted here with an inset. And now God will give specific laws to the Israelites to follow. Why is this inserted here? We're in a dramatic place. The final plague is just about to come. And now the narrative of the plague stops, and God reveals some specific laws to the Israelites at this point. Why is it inserted here? Well, we're not told why. But let's think about it. Do the Israelites know the true God? Well, no, they obviously don't. They've been slaves for generations, several centuries there in Egypt. And they've been immersed in the Egyptian religion, immersed in the Egyptian culture for many generations now. And for those generations, they have lost sight of the knowledge of the true God. How do we know that? Well, what's the first thing the Israelites do when they get to Sinai and Moses goes up on the mountain to receive the law from God, and he doesn't come back when they expect him to? What happens? The Israelites go to Aaron and demand that he make a God that they can worship. And what God do they make? They make a golden calf. And of course, what's one of the animals? It's considered sacred to the Egyptians. Well, the cattle are. The bulls, the heifers, the calves. They're considered holy, so they're so immersed in the Egyptian culture and religion, they make a God just like the Egyptians, one of the Egyptians' most popular gods. Do the Israelites understand the Sabbath day? No, they don't. What does it take? It takes God giving a miracle week after week after week for 40 long years of giving them manna six days a week, and a double portion of manna on Friday, and no manna on the Sabbath to teach them to observe the Sabbath and don't work on the Sabbath day. So the Israelites have totally lost sight of these things, of who and what the true God is, and His commandments and His laws. So God has to start getting rid of some of the Egyptian from their mind, some of the Egyptian religion and culture, and essentially start over again by giving them some basics. And the first basic He gives them in how to worship God is, okay, I'm going to give you a calendar to start with so you'll know which times are holy. And He starts out doing that. Verse 2, what does He say? This month shall be your beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year to you. And this is referring to the Hebrew month of Nisan, which is the month in the spring that includes the Passover. So it's logical that spring should start the new year because spring is a time of new growth and a regeneration and refreshing of the land and all that sort of thing. So it's a time of rebirth and regeneration and renewal. So this is going to be the beginning of the religious calendar for the Israelites.

Verse 3, speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, on the tenth day of this month, every man shall take for himself a lamb according to the house of his father, a lamb for a household. So now God begins giving them the laws regarding the Passover. And of course, as we know, the Passover lamb represents the future sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

For the sins of the world is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. And then he says, verse 4, if the household is too small for the lamb, if it's a household of only three or four people, they don't need a whole lamb, they can't eat that much. So combine several households together. Let him and his neighbor next to his house take it according to the number of the persons. According to each man's need, you shall make your count for the lamb. So if one household is too small to consume an entire lamb, they should combine up, get several households together, so that the sacrifice is not wasted, so that they can eat the entire thing. And much of it is not going to go to waste there.

Verse 5, your lamb shall be without blemish a male of the first year. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats. It could be either type of animal. And notice here that all of the animals sacrificed to God have to be perfect without blemish. People were not allowed to sacrifice their least desirable animal because the point is it's a sacrifice.

It's not a sacrifice if the animal is defective or lame or unproductive or something like that. And of course it has to be perfect because what does the sacrifice represent? It represents the perfect Savior, Jesus the Christ. Now you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight. So the Israelites choose the lamb, set it aside on the tenth day of the month, but they're not allowed to kill it until four days later on the fourteenth. It's slaughtered there at the beginning of the fourteenth day, and then its blood is used to mark the doorposts of their homes. And then it is roasted and eaten for a meal. Verse 7, and they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses where they eat it. I touched on this a little bit earlier in the series, but think about what's going on here. Again, the Egyptians and the Israelites are living fairly close together, and the Israelites are told to slaughter an animal, a sheep, or a goat, which is sacred to the Egyptians, and to do it publicly by taking that blood and smearing it on the doorframes of their houses. It has to be public. The Israelites aren't allowed to do all of this behind closed door in secret. No, they are publicly, you might say, crossing the Rubicon. They are passing a point of no return. They are slaughtering the Egyptians' gods and smearing the blood of the Egyptians' gods publicly on the doors of their homes. So, this requires some faith on the part of the Israelites. This is a point of no return for them. They've made it public that they are rejecting the gods of the Egyptians and only going to worship and obey the true God now. So, it does take a certain amount of faith to do this.

So, God instructs the Israelites to be ready to leave because, very shortly, the Egyptians are going to throw them out of the land. They are going to force them to leave.

They will execute judgment. I am the Lord. So, again, we see it reinforce the point we've covered that He is executing judgment against the gods of Egypt. As we have seen throughout this series of sermons, God carries out these plagues against specific gods to show that they are powerless in the face of the one true God of Israel. Verse 13, Now 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 here's where Passover gets its name because God is going to pass over those houses. And the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. So, notice He says the sign is for you. It is for the Israelites here. And it assures the Israelites they are going to be spared because they're going to see a lot of see and hear a lot of weeping and wailing that night as the Egyptians are killed. But this sign of the blood on their doorposts and lintels is a sign that God is going to protect them during this last and final plague.

Verse 14, we see again the theme of remembering.

So again, we see the importance of remembering here. God here gives an obligation to the Israelites to remember the Exodus through these things. It is a permanent law that will apply to every subsequent generation that will follow them. And then it gets into the instruction for the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses. For whoever eats unleavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. On the first day there shall be a holy convocation, a holy meeting, as we'll be having here in two weeks.

And on the seventh day there shall be a holy convocation for you, which we'll have on the following Friday. No manner of work shall be done on them, but that which everyone must eat. That only may be prepared by you. That's the only type of work allowed for eating. So you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this same day I will have brought your armies out from the land of Egypt. Therefore you shall observe this day throughout your generations as an everlasting ordinance.

In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread until the twenty-first day of the month, at evening. For seven days no leaven shall be found in your houses. Since whoever eats what is leaven, that same person shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a stranger or a native of the land. You shall eat nothing leavened. In all your dwellings you shall eat unleavened bread.

So, of course, here are very specific instructions about keeping the Feast of Unleavened Bread with no leaven to be found in your property, on your homes, and a holy day on the first and last days of this particular feast. Verse 21, then Moses called for all the elders and said to them, Pick out and take lambs for yourselves according to your families, and kill the Passover lamb. And you shall take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and strike the lentil in the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin.

And none of you shall go out of the door of his house until morning, for the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians. And when he sees the blood on the lentil and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door and not allow the destroyer to come into your houses to strike you. So, this is why the Israelites are to paint the blood, spear the door and doorposts with blood, and not go out so that they can be assured that God will protect them.

And it is only those homes where this has been done, where they will be protected from the plague of the Firstborn. Verse 24, And you shall observe this thing as an ordinance for you, and your sons, your offspring, your descendants forever. And it shall come to pass when you come to the land which the Lord will give you, just as He promised that you shall keep this service.

And it shall be when your children say to you, what do you mean by this service? And it's from these words here that the Jewish people to this day, the observant Jews, the children will ask a series of questions at the Passover about the significance of this. And it's all part of God's repeated instruction, the theme through here again and again, to remember these things. To remember these things again, so we have gratitude, so we have wisdom, so we have faith, which we don't have if we forget these things. Verse 27, That you shall say it is the Passover sacrifice of the Lord, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel and Egypt, when He struck the Egyptians and delivered our households, so the people bowed their heads and worshipped.

Then the children of Israel went away and did so, just as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did. And it came to pass at midnight that the Lord struck 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 livestock.

So Pharaoh rose in the night, he, all his servants, and all the Egyptians, and there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where there was not one dead. And here's an artist's depiction of Pharaoh and his wife holding his dead son. And I like the way this illustration captures the grief and the shock, because Pharaoh is kind of sitting there with a dazed look on his face that this has happened.

His son, who is to be the next Pharaoh, is dead. And this has serious consequences for the succession line. They're in Egypt. And again, this was a judgment on Egypt's gods, many gods, but I'll comment on only two of them. One is Sobek, the crocodile-headed god who is the god of protection, particularly of the pharaohs, the house of Pharaoh. And also, he was viewed as a god of fertility, who epitomized a might and strength of the pharaohs. But of course, he's not much of a god of protection because the very son, next in line to be the pharaoh, is killed in this plague.

And another major Egyptian god is Osiris. Osiris is viewed as the giver of life. But he cannot protect life. And Pharaoh's own son is killed in this plague. And he couldn't do anything to prevent the massive death throughout the land of Egypt. All of the firstborn are killed. I might mention here also that normally the pharaoh is the firstborn, so why wasn't this pharaoh killed? Well, obviously because he wasn't a firstborn. He had obviously had an older brother who would have been in line to become pharaoh. And we're not told the circumstances, but obviously this older brother has died at some point. Perhaps killed in battle, perhaps died of disease, perhaps assassinated. We just don't know. It's not revealed to us. But obviously this pharaoh is not a firstborn, so he lives to see the destruction of his empire here. So that's why he didn't die in this particular plague. Verse 31, then he pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron by night and said, Rise, go out from among my people, both you and the children of Israel, and go serve the Lord. As you have said, also take your flocks and your herds, as you have said, and be gone. And bless me also. In other words, he asks Moses and Aaron to bless him, to protect him also as they are leaving. And the Egyptians urged the people that they might send them out of the land and haste, for they said, We shall all be dead. If this keeps up, they've seen so much death and destruction. They are among your families and loved ones and neighbors. Verse 34, so the people took their dough before it was leaven, having their kneading bowls bound up in their clothes on their shoulders. Now the children of Israel had done, according to the word of Moses, and they had asked from the Egyptians, Articles of Silver, Articles of Gold, and Clothing. And the Lord had given the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they granted them what they requested. Thus they plundered the Egyptians. So once again, this is a payment, you might say, for the generations of slavery in which the Israelites have been enslaved to the Egyptians. Verse 37, then the children of Israel journeyed from Ramesses to Sukkoth, about 600,000 men on foot besides children. A mixed multitude went up with them also, and flocks and herds, a great deal of livestock. So what we see here, the Israelites, as they are leaving, also take other people with them. As I mentioned before, the Egyptians enslaved other nations as well, through conquest and the slave trade. And these people are also made in God's image, and they don't want to be enslaved by the Egyptians any more than the Israelites do. So a large number of them, a mixed multitude, it says, of other peoples from other nations and cultures and so on, go with the Israelites. Verse 39, they baked on leaven cakes of the dough which they had brought out of Egypt. For it was not leaven because they were driven out of Egypt and could not wait, nor had they prepared provisions for themselves.

Now the sojourn of the children of Israel who lived in Egypt was 430 years. And I might mention here, I don't have time to go into it in detail, but the 430 years isn't the entire time they are enslaved in Egypt. Notice it says it is the sojourn of the children of Israel. Sojourn meaning their time of traveling. This is actually going back to the time God makes a covenant with Abraham, which is 430 years earlier. The time they are actually enslaved in Egypt is after the time of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. It's Jacob's son Joseph who first goes into Egypt and then several generations later the Israelites are enslaved up until they're freed.

So their actual time of enslavement is about half this 430 years here. However, that is still many generations of being enslaved by the Egyptians. Again, don't have time to go into that in detail and prove it, but I did want to mention that. Verse 41, and it came to pass at the end of the 430 years on that very same day.

This is intriguing here because what is this day? It is the Holy Day, the first Holy Day. It's specifically mentioned 430 years on that very same day. What is the very same day 430 years earlier? Well, it's when God has made a covenant with Abraham. That tells us God had obviously made this covenant with Abraham on the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

We see a pattern throughout history. God does things on specific Holy Days. Often we see that with Christ, the Passover, being killed at the time of Passover. We see the church being founded on the day of Pentecost and so on. Don't have time to go through all of that. But it does show God works with things according to the timing of his Holy Days.

So on that very same day, it came to pass that all the armies of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt. It is a night of solemn observance to the Lord for bringing them out of the land of Egypt. This is that night of the Lord, a solemn observance for all the children of Israel throughout their generations. And it is from this instruction that we get what we refer to as the night to be much observed here.

Of the evening before the first Holy Day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

Verse 43, And the Lord said to Moses in Aaron, This is the ordinance of the Passover, No foreigner shall eat it. But every man's servant who is bought for money, when you have circumcised him, then he may eat it. A sojourner and a hired servant shall not eat it. In one house it shall be eaten. You shall not carry any of the flesh outside the house, nor shall you break one of its bones. All the congregation of Israel shall keep it. And when a stranger dwells with you, and wants to keep the Passover to the Lord, let all his males be circumcised. And then let him come near and keep it. And he shall be as a native of the land, for no uncircumcised person shall eat it.

So any non-Israelite who wanted to join with the Israelites there to eat the Passover had to be circumcised first to do that. And it is from this instruction that we read right here that we teach that Passover, the New Covenant Passover, that we will be keeping a week and a half from this coming two weeks from last Thursday. The only ones who partake of that are those who are spiritually circumcised, who have accepted the terms of the New Covenant. In other words, those who have repented, who have been baptized, putting to death the old person, who have laid on them to receive God's Holy Spirit. Those are the ones who take part in the Passover symbols there, the Passover ceremony. Now we do allow those who want to come and watch. You're welcome to do that. But for partaking of the symbols and the foot washing and so on that is for baptized members only. It's not just for anyone and everyone. It's for those who are. As with ancient Israel, it was a part of the Old Covenant. They had to commit to that covenant through circumcision. And today that covenant is expressed through spiritual circumcision, through getting a new heart, through baptism and repentance and receiving of God's Spirit through the laying out of hands.

And they are not just for the land of Egypt according to their army. So at last the Israelites are freed and begin to leave Egypt. We come to Exodus 13 now and I'm going to skip over most of this chapter because it recaps a lot of what we've already covered here. But I will mention that several times here you can read it yourself again and again several times and what we're skipping over it mentions the importance of remembering. And do this as a remembrance. Do this as a memorial. These are important things that I want you to remember. So he emphasizes that again and again. But I do want to mention something near the end of this chapter, verse 17. Then it came to pass when Pharaoh had let the people go that God did not lead them by the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near.

For God said, lest perhaps the people change their minds when they see war and return to Egypt. So what's being talked about here? What is the way of the Philistines? I've mentioned a number of times in sermons the Via Morris, the way of the sea, this ancient international highway that ran from Egypt north along the Mediterranean coast.

Runs...okay, come on here. Yeah, runs...here's Egypt, the land of Goshen, where the Israelites are. The Via Morris, the way of the Philistines, ran along the Mediterranean coast up here and then went inland through Israel. All this green area over here, by the way, that's Israel. That's the Promised Land. Here's the Sinai Desert. You can see the difference between the greenery and the desert area here. And then it runs up to Damascus and over far to the east, to Babylon there. And this highway has been in existence for many centuries. It's called here the Way of the Philistines here. So God tells them, don't go this way. Why does He tell them not to go that way? Because you take that route and it's only a few days walk to get to the Promised Land. You know, maybe a week or two, allowing for cattle and animals and infants and the elderly and so on. You know, you could be there in a week or two in the Promised Land, but God says, don't go that way. Instead, turn. Go in a different direction. And He says here, for God said, let's go back and read it, lest perhaps the people change their minds when they see war and return to Egypt. So this is why God tells them not to go that way because the Philistines aren't going to give up their land that easily. There's going to be fighting. There's going to be war. And God recognizes the Israelites and just not prepared for that yet. After all, they've been slaves for generations. Do they know how to fight?

No, they don't. Not in any organized way. Yeah, they might fistfight, but that's not going to capture cities. That's not going to defeat the Philistines here. So let's continue on with the story, and I'll touch on this a little bit more. But God, essentially what is being stated here, is God knows the Israelites just are not prepared to wage war and not to conquer the Promised Land at this point. They're not prepared to conquer the Philistines. They're really not prepared to conquer anybody because of their slave mentality, to be blunt.

It's not so much a matter of physically being able to fight, but just their mentality is not ready for that. Verse 18, so God led the people around by way of the wilderness of the Red Sea, takes them into the desert, in other words. And the children of Israel went up in orderly ranks out of the land of Egypt. And Moses took the bones of Joseph with him.

How did the Israelites originally come to Egypt? Well, when Joseph, their great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, had been sold as a slave and was taken to Egypt. We're familiar with that story and don't have time to cover that, but that's how the Israelites initially came to Egypt. And a famine in the land that drove the brothers there. So Joseph made a promise, or made his relative's promise back in Genesis 50 in verse 25. If you want to write down the reference, Genesis 50 verse 25. Joseph made them swear that when they leave Egypt, you're going to take my bones with you.

And Moses remembers that event. And Moses is probably the busiest of all the departing Israelites here, but he remembers the promise. And it's interesting that there's a lesson here, a small lesson, but an important one here, too, that don't forget your promises. Don't forget your promises. No matter how busy you are, no matter how hectic your life, your circumstances may be, don't forget your promises.

Because Moses is the one trying to lead all of the Israelites out of Egypt. And he, apparently he alone, remembers this promise to take Joseph's bones up with them. Verse 20, so they took their journey from Sukkoth and camped at Ethem at the edge of the wilderness. And the Lord went with them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light so as to go by day and night.

He did not take away the pillar of cloud by day or the pillar of fire by night from before the people. And now we come to the last chapter that we'll cover here and the final events. The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the children of Israel, that they turn and camp before Pihahiroth, between Migdall and the sea, opposite Beel Zippon, you shall camp before it by the sea.

And the next verse explains that God wants the Israelites to change their course so that Pharaoh will think they've gotten lost there in the wilderness. For Pharaoh will say of the children of Israel, they are bewildered by the land. The wilderness has closed them in. And this is typical of desert. You have to be very careful navigating in desert because there aren't many landscapes. Everything looks alike. And this is kind of what is being described here. Verse 4, that I will harden Pharaoh's heart so that he will pursue them, and I will gain honor over Pharaoh and over all his army, that the Egyptians may know that I am the Lord.

And they did so. So in spite of the ten plagues that have taken place up to this point, the various other miracles Pharaoh and the Egyptians still do not recognize the God of the Israelites, who is so powerful everywhere, not just within the limited land of Egypt. And so they continue to watch where the Israelites are going, maybe thinking they can now outwit them and their God. But as we'll soon see who outwits whom. In the story, verse 5, now it was told, the king of Egypt, that the people had fled, and the heart of Pharaoh and his servants was turned against the Israelites.

And they said, why have we done this? That we have let Israel go from serving us. So he made ready his chariot and took his people with him. It's interesting the way this is worded, this indicates in the Hebrew, that Pharaoh was so anxious to pursue the Israelites that he literally sets up and harnesses his own horses to the chariot. He doesn't even wait for a servant or attache to do it for him. He's so anxious to pursue the Israelites, he prepares his own chariot, and he's ready to go. And this is actually a carving in pink granite from Egypt of the Pharaoh, whom we believe to be the Pharaoh of the Exodus, Ammon Hotep II.

And here he is in his chariot, pulled by horses. And it's interesting, chariots had only been invented a short time before this. And they were the most advanced military equipment of the time. They were kind of the tanks of our day. Infantry would be no match for a chariot pulled by powerful horses. And typically in the chariots, there was a driver controlling the horses and an archer. Here, he would continually shoot arrows at the enemy. So this is what is being depicted here. So in addition to his own chariot, he also took 600 choice chariots, and all the chariots of Egypt with captains over every one of them.

This is a commander of the chariot, the guy who's shooting arrows in addition to the driver. And the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and he pursued the children of Israel. And the children of Israel went out with boldness. Note this, the children of Israel went out with boldness. That's how they leave Egypt, with boldness. They're happy, they're glad to be free at last, free at last. They're finally leaving. The slavery.

Verse 9, So the Egyptians pursued them, all the horses and chariots of Pharaoh, his horsemen and his army. And the Israelites don't know they're being pursued until what we read now. And they overtook them camping by the sea beside Pye Hireoth before Zittmael Ziphon. And when Pharaoh drew near, the children of Israel lifted their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians marched after them. They see this cloud of dust out on the horizon, and it gets bigger and bigger. And then they hear the footsteps and the hooves of the chariot, of the horses, and so on.

So they were very afraid, and the children of Israel cried out to the Lord. And now we see another lesson from the story of the Exodus, because only two verses earlier, they said the Egyptians left Egypt with boldness when they're not, when they think they're not being pursued.

But the moment they see the Egyptians pursuing them, they become cowards. And they cower, and they cry, and they are very afraid, as it says here, and they cry out to God. So the Israelites, we see, still have a slave mentality, not the mentality needed to stand and fight. And this is one reason to be blunt. You know, there are several reasons why the entire generation that leaves Egypt has to die out in the wilderness. You ever ask yourself why that had to happen?

Well, it had to happen because of their mentality. What was their mentality? Their mentality was the mentality of a slave people, not a people who are willing to fight and take the promises that God had given them, not a people who were prepared to fight for the land, which it's going to take fighting. It's going to take battle. We don't have time to cover that. But they have to be replaced by a generation that has not lived as slaves, has not lived with that slave mentality. And this mindset is also why we'll soon see them saying that they want to return to Egypt because they want a life that is safe and secure.

Yeah, it's a life of slavery, but at least it's safe. At least it's secure. We don't have to worry about our lives. We don't have to worry about not having enough to eat. Yeah, we're slaves, but we can deal with that. They want to stay alive even if it means being slaves. Even if it means the Egyptians can come in and take their baby boys and feed them to the crocodiles.

It's a very passive slave mentality. And there's a lesson for us here because God didn't call us to a life of being safe and secure in slavery to someone or something else. God called us to follow Him in faith wherever He leads us. And that's an important lesson from the story here. Verse 11, And they said to Moses, Because there were no graves in Egypt, have you taken us away to die in the wilderness?

Why have you so dealt with us to bring us up out of Egypt? So, their complaint, if you think about it, is maybe sarcastic because if there's one thing Egypt had a lot of, it was graves. It was tombs. You can read this as tombs, not as graves, and it makes sense because Egypt is just filled with tombs and monuments and graves like the pyramids.

The pyramids are what? They're the tombs for the great pharaohs. And the Egyptians say, Is it not because there are enough tombs in Egypt that you have to bring us out in the wilderness to die? Egypt was filled with tombs.

Verse 12, Is this not the word that we told you in Egypt, saying, Let us alone that we may serve the Egyptians? Moses, didn't we tell you when we're in Egypt, Leave us alone! We just want to stay here with our comfortable and safe life. Even if it means being enslaved to the Egyptians. For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians and that we should die in the wilderness.

So they say they would rather return to slavery than confront the Egyptians who want to take them back as slaves. And this is somewhat understandable because, frankly, most people will do anything to save their skin. Even if it means being enslaved. What was a mindset of the founders of our country?

Patrick Hemingree, give me liberty or give me death. Nathan Hale, I regret that I have but one life to give for my country. These are the kind of men who had the courage and had what it took to found a country and free the nation from the rule of Great Britain.

And to create the most prosperous and powerful and blessed nation the world has ever seen. And that never would have happened with a slave mentality.

And it will never happen with us if we have a slave mentality. A passive mentality like that. Verse 13, Moses said to the people, Do not be afraid. Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will accomplish for you today, for the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall see again no more forever.

The Lord will fight for you and you shall hold your peace.

And there's another lesson from the Exodus story. Don't have time to cover it in detail, but there are times when we have to stand and fight for what is right, for God's way of life, for God's truth. And there are times when we stand still and let God fight the battles for us.

And we need to know which is which.

Verse 15, And the Lord said to Moses, Why do you cry to me? Tell the children of Israel to go forward. So here we see again, God doesn't want the Israelites to be passive. He says, Go forward, get moving.

Get moving, but lift up your rod and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it.

And the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of the sea, and I indeed will harden the hearts of the Egyptians, and they shall follow them. So I shall gain honor over Pharaoh and over all his army, his chariots, and his horsemen. Then the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, but I have gained honor for myself over Pharaoh, his chariots, and his horsemen.

Excuse me, got behind here. And the angel of the Lord, who went before the camp of Israel, moved and went behind them.

And the pillar of cloud went from before them and stood behind them.

So this pillar of fire and cloud stands between the Israelites and the Egyptians, to prevent the Egyptians from advancing on the Israelites while they cross through the sea.

Verse 20, So it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel.

Thus it was a cloud of darkness to the one, and it gave light by night to the other, so that the one, the Egyptians, did not come nearer the Israelites all that night.

So this is a night crossing when the Israelites are making their crossing.

Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea into dry land, and the waters were divided.

So God could have used any means to divide the waters, but as we see here with the other miracles, he uses natural forces, he uses a wind to blow and divide the waters and to dry out the muddy sea bottom there, and part the waters. And the Israelites, thus, crossed through on dry ground.

So the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea on the dry ground, and the waters were a wall to them on their right hand and on their left.

And the Egyptians pursued and went after them into the midst of the sea, all Pharaoh's horses, his chariots, and his horsemen.

Now it came to pass in the morning watch, and here's an interesting little detail, because the morning watch was from about 2 a.m. till sunrise, about 6 a.m.

So again, this is happening at night, that the Lord looked down upon the army of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and cloud, and he troubled the army of the Egyptians.

So the Egyptians start following the Israelites there through the waters, and it does not go well for them.

As we see next, verse 25, he took off their chariot wheels.

And I think the meaning here isn't he literally took them off, but again, Hebrew is a fairly vague language.

I think what it's referring to is their wheels just get bogged down now.

The water starts seeping back in.

It's getting muddy, and their chariot wheels are bogging down and getting stuck there.

And so that they drove them with difficulty, and the Egyptians said, Let us flee from the face of Israel, for the Lord fights for them against the Egyptians.

So God throws the Egyptian army into a panic now.

The Egyptians finally recognized that the Lord fights for them against us.

So they come to an important realization, but it's a little bit too late, because they're going to drown with the knowledge that God fought with the Israelites against the Egyptians.

And they die with that knowledge.

Verse 26, Then the Lord said to Moses, Stretch out your hand over the sea, that the waters may come back upon the Egyptians on their chariots and on their horsemen.

And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and when the morning appeared, now it's sunrise, the sea returned to its full depth, while the Egyptians were fleeing into it.

So the Lord overthrew the Egyptians in the midst of the sea.

Then the waters returned and covered the chariots, the horsemen, and all the army of Pharaoh, that came into the sea after them, not so much as one of them remained.

So what we see here is the Israelites have crossed by night, the Egyptians start after them by night, and then just as it begins to dawn, then God sends the waters back, and the Egyptians drown.

And now it's daylight, and all the Israelites can witness this.

They witness the waters coming back together, and the Egyptians and their horses drown.

So God shows the Israelites, who had feared so much, feared the Egyptians so much, He shows them dramatically by this miracle that their enemies are dead, and they don't have to fear the Egyptians anymore.

Verse 29, But the children of Israel had walked on dry land in the midst of the sea, and the waters were walled to them on their right hand and on their left.

So the Lord saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore.

Thus Israel saw the great work which the Lord had done in Egypt, so the people feared the Lord, and believed the Lord and His servant Moses.

And this is surely one of the most remarkable events in all of human history, that Egypt, the superpower of the time, was finally and completely crushed through these miraculous events.

And the Israelites saw their enemies vanquished, and saw their corpses lying there on the shore.

And one more Egyptian god had to be vanquished, and this happened in this last miracle.

That last Egyptian god to be vanquished was Pharaoh himself, because he was viewed as a god among the Egyptians.

The Egyptians viewed him as a god. He probably viewed himself as a god, which is why he is answerable to nobody as far as he is concerned.

And like the other gods, he also had to be totally crushed, and vanquished and shown to be impotent in the face of the one true god, the true god who is completely and totally and overwhelmingly victorious.

And we'll stop with the story there.

However, I do want to leave you with several key themes and lessons that we've seen throughout this story that we can apply every day of our life.

And I'll just go through these fairly quickly first.

God takes sin very seriously.

God takes sin very seriously.

The severity of the plagues that destroyed Egypt as a superpower shows how seriously God took their sins.

They carried out great evil, great sin, and God punished them greatly.

And He hates any sins, including ours.

That's a lesson for the days of Unleavened Bread, the importance of coming out of sin.

And replacing sin in our lives with the bread of life, Jesus Christ.

We must never take any kind of sin lightly in our lives.

Any sin is serious, and if we don't repent of it, it brings death.

A second point is that God is patient, and He gives time to repent.

But His patience has limits.

God is patient, giving us time to repent, but His patience has limits.

He gives warnings as we see again and again with the Egyptians.

He's going to sin this plague or that plague.

But His patience will eventually run out.

And when it does, then comes God's fearsome judgment.

And we need to turn and repent before we face that judgment.

A third lesson is that many people turn to God in a time of calamity, but when things get better, they almost immediately revert to their old ways.

In other words, their hearts get hardened again.

We see that with Pharaoh again and again.

We wonder how Pharaoh could have been so blind and so stupid as to harden his heart at many times.

But in fact, Pharaoh wasn't all that unusual. He wasn't all that different from us. When the pressure and the heat is on, then it would change his mind.

But when the heat is off and the pressure is off, he reverts to old patterns.

And we're not all that different from Pharaoh.

Fourth point, God is trying to get our attention. Are we listening?

Remember that the Israelites were victims of the first three plagues along with the Egyptians.

And God had to shake them up and get their attention so they could begin separating them from the Egyptians and to make them his chosen nation.

And the events that are taking place in the world around us now should get our attention.

Because they're things we've been talking about for years.

And now we see them coming to pass and beginning to shape up in accordance with our understanding of Bible prophecy.

Fifth point, God requires obedience, not just belief.

How were the Israelites spared from the death of the firstborn? Yes, they had to trust, but they also had to act.

They had to smear that blood on their doorposts there because had they not done that, they would have lost their firstborn children, just like the Egyptians did.

They had to act and obey in faith, or they would have lost their firstborn.

And in the same way, we also have to act and live in faith and break away and separate ourselves from the Egypt of this world if we were to be saved.

Sixth point, what are your gods? What are your gods? We've talked an awful lot about gods in this series. Egyptian gods of everything. Dozens of gods. Gods and goddesses over this and that, that the Egyptians worshipped and devoted their lives to.

What about you? What do you devote your life to?

A false god is anything that comes between you and the true god.

What comes between you and the true god? What consumes your time? What takes up your energy? What are you most interested in? Your job, your career, your hobbies, sports, entertainment?

Only you can answer that. You alone can answer that. But just remember that at some point all of those things are going to vanish away.

And you're going to be left standing before God and answerable for how you spent your time.

What was your priority? What did you spend all your time on?

And we're all going to have to answer to God for that.

Final point, our all-powerful God is in complete control.

And we see this again and again throughout these plagues here, that God controlled every aspect of these plagues to bring about His plan and His purpose of delivering His people from slavery and sin and to make a new nation of them.

And we can take a great deal of hope and comfort in that, that God is in complete control as we see again and again in this story.

And as Philippians tells us, He who has begun a good work in us will continue that work in us so long as we are receptive and open to Him and is leading.

So we can't allow anything to come between us and between God and His work in your life and in His will for your life.

So as we soon and two weeks will begin to observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread and the Passover a few days before that, only two weeks from today, I hope you'll be thinking and remembering all these many important lessons from the Exodus story. And remember and think on these things through the coming weeks.