Passover Prep - How Did God Prepare Israel for the First Passover?

Brethren, on Thursday evening, March 29, we are going to be coming together to observe the Lord's Passover. It's an event that in one sense is a very solemn event because the picture is the painful suffering and death of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

But it's also a time of great joy in that through that sacrifice, we as Christians are given the ultimate victory over sin and over death. We come to the Passover service to serve as an expression of our faith and the reconciling death of Jesus Christ, that we're reconciled to God through that sacrifice. We also participate in the Passover because it's a renewal of our commitment to allow Jesus Christ to live in each and every one of us, to live victorious in each and every one of us.

God instructs us how He wants us to live. That's a part of the days we're coming to, the days of Unleavened Bread. He's given us a life to live victorious in Him. He teaches us what's important to Him. And as we prepare for this year's Passover, I thought it would be good for us to be mindful of the things that are in God's mind at this time of the year. What is it? How would God want us to prepare for Passover? What is His mind on this subject? I thought it would be good for us to take a look at that because we want to be about our Father's business.

As we take a look into the Bible, we see foundational lessons that God has for each and every one of us as we prepare for the Passover. And today we want to begin a two-part series. I've got this sermon, one more sermon, before the Passover. And so I've cut this in half. I'll give you half of the material today, half the next time I'm with you. But we want to take a look at what's on God's mind in terms of His wanting us to prepare for the Passover.

Or another way of looking at this, how did God the Father prepare Old Testament Israel for that very first Passover? What was on God's mind? What did He want us to learn? What He wanted them to learn? And what did He want us to learn? Through the ten plagues that we see in the Old Testament, we'll look at five today, five next time, we see that God was showing Himself superior to the gods of Egypt. He utterly defeated them.

And secondly, we see that there are certain lessons to be learned. And that as Israel walked away from Egypt, we need to walk away from the false gods that want to intrude in our lives. And if there's anything, brethren, that causes us not to pray like we should, study like we should, meditate like we should, fast as we should, if there's any of those things in our life that hinder us in our walk with God, then those are our American idols.

And we need to walk away from those. We need to walk away from those. Let's take a look at 1 Corinthians 11. 1 Corinthians 11. And in verse 28, But let a man, or a woman, let us examine ourselves, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. Notice very carefully, we are to examine ourselves and then eat, not examine ourselves and then say, well, you know, I'm just too big a sinner, I shouldn't be there on Passover evening.

Well, if you are too big of a sinner, you need to be at a Passover service. Not with the idea that you're just going to come there as a matter of tradition, that this is what we do.

You come there because you want to be forgiven. And as the Days of Unleavened Bread show, you want to repent of whatever it is that's in your life or my life. We'll talk more about that on the first Day of Unleavened Bread when I'm speaking to you on that subject. But we want to realize that God wants us to examine ourselves, to see our tremendous need, and then to realize that need has been taken care of by the sacrifice of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

We think very deeply about that. We think about what we need to be doing. Now, let's take a look at 2 Corinthians 13. 2 Corinthians 13. 2 Corinthians 13 and verse 5. It says, 2 Corinthians 13. Now, the Corinthian church had no problem examining the apostle Paul. No problem going through his life, going through his ministry, making comments about what they felt about him. But in the original Greek, this word yourselves, it says, examine yourselves. The word yourselves is emphatic. Paul is saying, look, you've spent plenty of time examining me. Time for you to examine you. And, brethren, that means you and I examine ourselves.

Not in terms of whether we are in the faith, in terms of are we baptized, that sort of thing, but in terms of are we demonstrating the love of God? Are we demonstrating the use of God's Holy Spirit? Are we in the faith, in terms of our example, our lifestyle, our direction? And that's what we should be asking ourselves. How are we doing in our walk with the great God?

Well, once again, I'm going to take a look at today, we are going to take a look at five of the plagues of Egypt and see the lessons that are to be learned. Now, in examining ourselves, God, our Father, and Jesus Christ, our elder brother, have provided an array, an array of powerful spiritual tools.

We have prayer, which is intense spiritual conversation with God. Intense spiritual conversation. You know, you can watch TV and they talk about, we've got the best 4G network. We've got as fast as you can think. The vehicle of prayer takes 4G and makes it insignificant.

Our prayers go to God so quickly. They go right from wherever we're at to His throne, to His ear, much faster than 4G. It's intense spiritual conversation. That's one part of the array. We also have the Word of God that's living, as it says in Hebrews 4, it's living, it's powerful, it discerns. And we study that word deeply because that's a portion of the mind of God in print. Another part of the array is we have personalized meditation. We think on what it is we need to think on. Maybe a husband has certain needs, maybe a wife has certain needs, spiritually speaking. Each of us have our own needs. We meditate on what we need to be doing. Not our next-door neighbor, not the person sitting in front of us, the person sitting behind us or next to us. What is it we need to meditate on? Meditation is nothing more than concentrated thought on a specific point.

We are going to take concentrated thought. We're going to look with laser-like focus at something.

Then, of course, we've got fasting. We draw close to God intimately through fasting. We use our weak human flesh to teach us we are weak, we are fallible, that if we don't eat food, we will perish. If we don't drink water, we will perish. And so it brings us to a humble frame of mind. So we've got this array, a powerful array of spiritual tools. Prayer, study, meditation, fasting. So my theme today is a question. Hopefully we'll begin to answer it in a two-part series. The question is, how did God prepare Israel for the very first Passover?

How did God prepare Israel for the very first Passover? Because that should shed light on the way you and I prepare for Passover. With each of these five plagues, each of the ten plagues, we'll do five today. I'm going to go through, number one, the type of plague, number two, where it's found, number three, the Egyptian god or gods that reference, and number four, the lesson for us to learn today. Okay? First plague. Nile turning to blood. Found in Exodus 7, verses 14 through 25.

Now, most of these plagues dealt with a number of gods. I'm going to narrow this down to one.

I don't think we want to be here five hours as we have that kind of a length of the sermon today. So we're going to narrow this down to the god Osiris.

O-S-I-R-I-S. Osiris, who was the god of the Nile. Osiris is, according to Egyptian theology, the Nile was his bloodstream. The Nile was his bloodstream. Lesson to be learned. False gods bring death. False gods bring death. The true god brings life. The true god brings life. So let's take a look over here and put a marker as we go over there, because we're going to go to other areas. Let's go to Exodus, chapter 7.

Starting here in verse 14.

Exodus, chapter 7, verse 14.

Let's pause for a moment. Was it that God hated the Egyptians? Of course not. Jesus Christ came to die for all people, including the Egyptians. And God very much, and Jesus Christ very much, wanted the Egyptians to know who the real God was. Now, were they going to be converted in that time? No. Are they going to have their opportunity in the future? Absolutely. Absolutely. And this is going to be a part of when they're resurrected, they're going to remember these things.

Behold, I will strike the waters which are in the river with the rod that is in my hand, and they shall be turned to blood. Remember, the Nile was supposed to symbolize Osiris's bloodstream. So God, the ultimate teacher, is going to say, okay, you want to look at it that way? We'll look at it that way. And the fish that are in the river shall die. That God's bloodstream brought death. The river shall stink, not only in the human nostrils, but certainly in God's nostrils.

Now, not long ago, I gave a couple of sermons talking about the offerings of God. We talked about the offerings, the meat offering, the peace offering, and certainly the burn offering, the first one. And all of those offerings were sweet aromas to God, burn offering showing our total dedication to God, the grain offering showing our love for our fellow man, the peace offering showing a combination of our love for God, love for fellow man. And these were a sweet savor in the nostrils of God. Much different than what we see with Osiris. With Osiris, God made this plague so that the stench was such that they could hardly bear it. They could hardly bear it.

And in verse 18, they will loathe the drink of the water of the river.

They won't want things to do with that water. Then the Lord swothed the Moses saying to Aaron, Take your rod and stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt, over their streams, over their rivers, over their ponds, and over all their pools of water, that they may become blood. There shall be blood through all the land of Egypt, both in the buckets of wood and the pitchers of stone. So waters that were open to the open to the air, so to speak, rivers, streams, things in buckets, and various receptacles, those were all turned to blood. Or something that looked like blood. Bible says blood.

Verse 20, And Moses and Aaron did so just as the Lord commanded. He lifted up the rod and struck the waters that were in the river and in sight of Pharaoh and in sight of all the servants. And all the waters that were in the river were turned to blood. The fish that were in the river died, the river stank, and the Egyptians could not drink the water of the river. So there was blood throughout all the land of Egypt. Now notice verse 22. And the magicians of Egypt did so with their enchantments, and Pharaoh's heart grew hard, and he did not heed them, as the Lord had said.

So the holy men of the false God, were they a help? Or did they make things worse?

Do the people who consider themselves holy men in this age, in our civilization, do they make matters better, or do they make matters worse? When they claim to speak for God and God says, I didn't send you, they make matters worse. Verse 23. And Pharaoh turned and went into his house, and neither was his heart moved by this. So all the Egyptians dug all around the river for water to drink. So notice water was available. The thought is that water was filtered. That God allowed water so people wouldn't perish. God allowed the water to be found, but they had to dig for it. They had to work for it. They had to go through the sands, what have you, that sifted the waters that make them more pure. They dug around the water to drink because they could not drink the water of the river. And seven days passed after the Lord had struck the river. Seven denoting a number of completeness. I want to read you something from our UCG commentary. The Nile, considered the source of Egypt's livelihood, was regarded as a god. When the Nile flooded its banks in July and August, it indented the soil, thus making it possible for the people to grow bountiful crops. So every year the Nile would overflow. Sediment from the river would go onto the land and give a coating of fresh, rich soil. And of course you had the water that acted to irrigate it. And so the Egyptians viewed that because they received crops. They viewed that as something very special for them. At that time Pharaoh officiated ceremonies commemorating the blessing brought by the river. Perhaps Moses interrupted Pharaoh during one of these special occasions of celebration. The judgment would fall on the river, its tributaries, and even the smallest common receptacles. The Egyptians believed the Nile was Osiris's bloodstream. It is ironic, or was it ironic, that God turned the Nile to blood. You want to worship God that way? Let's see what that's really like.

So we've read all the various scriptures here in this section. Let's turn our attention to John chapter 4. Here you've got the story of Jesus Christ meeting the woman at the well. We're going to break into the narrative here.

Verse 11. The woman said, "...Sir, have you nothing to draw with, and the well is deep? Where then will you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as the well is sons and his livelihood?" Livestock, verse 13. Jesus answered and said to her, "...Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water I shall give him will never thirst, but the water I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water, springing up to everlasting life." So our lesson as we prepare for our New Testament, New Covenant Passover, is that false God, its blood brought death. It was a stench in God's nostrils and couldn't be touched. The blood of Jesus Christ, our Passover, the true God gives life. His blood gives life. The worship of the true God, what we are doing today as we come before God with a proper frame of mind. That is not a stench in God's nostrils. That is something that is something as a sweet savor in God's nostrils, much as the burnt, the grain, and the peace offerings.

Whereas the blood of Osiris, typified by the Nile River, brought death through Jesus Christ. We have the ability to have everlasting life. So, brethren, plague number one was for us to learn that false gods bring death. And let's not so quickly walk away from the fact that we don't have things in our life that we need to walk away from.

You look at your life spiritually, I'll look at my life spiritually, I'm betting everyone in this room has got something they need to walk away from. Something that hinders us in our walk with the great God, our American idols. So, plague number one, lesson learned, false gods bring death, true God brings life. Plague number two. It was the plague of the frogs. It's found in Exodus chapter 8 verses 1 through 15. The Egyptian God we are going to study here is Heekat. It has a number of different spellings, but I'll give it the one I saw most frequently is H-E-K-E-T. Heekat is the goddess of birth.

Lesson learned. Only the true God gives life. Very similar to lesson learned number one.

As I'm putting my thoughts together and getting the sermon ready for us today, and as I'm thinking about my own Passover preparation, I'm thinking, you know, there's so much similarity between what God wants us to learn with plague one and plague two. And then I thought, well, God is giving us a double dose. He's giving us a double dose of what He wants us to learn, and that is that God is number one in our life. As we prepare for the Passover, you and I need to ask ourselves, is that the case in the various aspects of our life? Is God number one? Let's go back over to Exodus.

We were in John. Let's go back to Exodus, in this case, chapter eight. I'm not going to read the whole section, just the first seven verses here. John chapter eight, verse one.

And the Lord spoke to Moses, Go to Pharaoh and say to him, Thus says the Lord, Let my people go, that they may serve me. Verse two. But if you refuse to let them go, behold, I'll smite your territory with frogs. Now, Heiket had the head of a frog and the body of a woman.

So again, God is, you know, you want to worship these things? I want you to be up close and friendly with these things. Verse three. So the river shall bring forth frogs abundantly, which shall go up and come into your house, into your bedroom, on your bed. Remember, she was the goddess of birth. Does God have a sense of humor?

Into your bedroom, on your bed, into your houses of your servants, on your people, into your ovens, into your kneading bowls. Oh, they love their God. God's going to say, You love that God? Ah, well, we want you to be up close and personal with that God. And the frogs shall come upon you and your people and on all of your servants.

Then the Lord spoke to Moses, Say to Aaron, Stretch out your hand with your rod over the streams, over the rivers, over the ponds, and cause the frogs to go up on the land of Egypt. So Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt, and the frogs came up and covered the land of Egypt. And the magicians did so with their enchantments and brought up frogs in the land of Egypt. God's allowing this. He's allowing their holy man to show themself that they're no help whatsoever. They are a part of the issue. They are a part of the problem.

Now, let's take a step back for a moment and take a look at this God, Heekit.

The Egyptians regarded her as having divine power. In their pantheon of gods, as I said, she was a woman with a frog's head. But notice something else about her, as the history books tell us. It was supposedly from her nostrils that came the breath of life.

From her nostrils came the breath of life.

They animated the bodies of those created by her husband, the great God, Kunim, from the dust of the earth. Now, does Satan have a counterfeit plan going here? You've got a marker here in Exodus 8. Let's go over to Genesis 2.

Genesis 2.

And verse 7, In a Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, according to Egypt, it was Kenim who did that. The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils. The great God does that, not Heekit. Breathed into his nostrils, the breath of life, and man became a living being. So we see where Satan is trying to mess with mankind's mind here. You have a counterfeit, but it is God who gives the Spirit in man.

Which makes us different from the animal world. Makes us different than frogs.

Much different. Let's go back to Exodus 8 again.

We see in verse 3 and 4, these frogs are multiplying all over. All over. What we see here is whenever there is a false God, whenever there is something in our life that shouldn't be there, and it takes the place of our God, that multiplies as the frogs are multiplying, that multiplies troubles in our life. If something in our life is aiding us so we don't pray or study like we should. That's going to multiply troubles in our life. So God wants to make sure those things are taken away from our life. Get rid of those things.

I may mention in verse 7 about the magicians. God allowed them to have their part in all of this, to make things worse. In your notes, you might want to write to Angelatians 1, verses 6 through 9. Galatians chapter 1 verses 6 through 9, where Paul pronounces a double curse on people who claim to be the ministers of the gospel, but who are not.

Paul pronounces a double curse, and that's inspired by the great God.

Now I want to point out something else. We're going to go past verse 7. I thought we were just going to state it, but I want to, as I'm thinking about it, let's look at verse 8.

Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron, and said, And treat the LORD that he may take away the frogs from me and from the people, and I'll let the people go, that they may sacrifice to the to the LORD. Okay, verse 15. But when the Pharaoh saw that there was relief, when he had asked for the frogs to be removed, and God got rid of the frogs, but when Pharaoh saw that there was relief, he hardened his heart and did not heed them as the LORD had said. With that in mind, let's go over to 2 Corinthians chapter 7. This is beginning to touch on something I want to cover with you during the first day of Unleavened Bread, but we will stop just before we get to what I want to cover. 2 Corinthians chapter 7. You know, if there was a church that had their share of issues, it was a church in Corinth. It was God's church. You know, sometimes people say, well, can this be God's church? We've got imperfect people. Where do we find the church that has nothing but perfect people? I don't see that any place in the Bible. But in Corinth, you see people who have a party spirit, therefore this guy or this minister or that minister. You see where they weren't properly keeping the passover. They had issues with somebody who had a sexual issue. They had issues in this church. And Paul in 1 Corinthians asked to disfelish somebody by mail. 2 Corinthians was written to some degree because that person had repented and come back to church. And Paul's writing them and saying, let's bring this individual back. They've repented other sins. Let's bring him back as a brother. But there were other issues in the church and people needed to know about repentance. You know, sometimes people think that they are being merciful, as we see in 1 Corinthians, and they weren't being merciful and allowing something to take place.

They were being permissive. And there's a great difference, brethren, between being permissive and being merciful. A great difference. 2 Corinthians 7, verse 8.

For even if I made you sorry with my letter, I do not regret it, though I did regret it. He felt bad he had to write it, but he needed to write it, and he wrote it. For I perceived that the same epistle made you sorry, though only for a while. Now I rejoice not that you were made sorry, but that your sorrow led to repentance. For you were made sorry in a godly manner, that you might suffer loss from us in nothing.

So Paul says there's a right kind of repentance. There's a right kind of getting leaven out of your life. Verse 10. For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted, but the sorrow of the world produces death. So we want the true goal, the true repentance. We don't want fools' gold. And on the first day of Unleavened Bread, we're going to talk about that. We're going to give you a Bible course, so to speak, talking about how we know if we are truly repentant. How do we know if we're really getting leaven out of our lives? What set of Bible verses is there that will show us and give us detail so we know how to properly delaven ourselves with God's help? We'll cover that on the first day of Unleavened Bread.

Let's go back to Exodus chapter 8.

Pharaoh was holding on to fools' gold. He didn't truly repent. He felt sorry about things when he was hurting. But when the hurt went away, much like Israel with the time of the Judges, when the hurt went away, forget about repentance. Forget about doing the things of God.

Chapter 8 of Exodus 14 says, They gather the frogs together in heaps, and the land stank. We have heaps of trouble in our life whenever we don't properly follow the true God. Only the true God gives life.

The God heiket was the God of fertility, the God of birth.

In God's mind, he's teaching these people a very important lesson.

A very important lesson. Not to look at that God of birth, but to look at the true God who is about to give birth to a new nation, the nation of Israel.

A living God who was going to give his people life in a new land, in a promised land.

That's the God we want to worship. Moving on to the third plague.

Third plague, the type of plague, was a plague of gnats.

We're going to see in a moment, it probably included a number of different types of flying insects.

It's found in Exodus 8, verses 16 through 19.

The particular God we're going to focus on here is the God Set, S-E-T, who was the God of the desert. Set. I should have said this earlier on, but there are any number of lessons to be learned. These are just some of the lessons I was seeing. Next year, I may look at the same material and see other things. That's the beauty about the Bible. It is a living word. It is a living word.

This is what I'm seeing for this sermon today.

But the lesson learned that I'm getting today is that God, in his ways, can't be duplicated. Oh, they can be counterfeited, but they can't be duplicated. Satan is a great counterfeiter, but Satan can't give you eternal life.

Satan will not give you a way to live that produces good things. Not ultimately. Let's take a look at Exodus 8, verses 16-19.

God allowed the first two plagues to be counterfeited. He was not going to allow this one to be counterfeited because there were lessons to be learned here.

Aaron struck the dust with his staff, attacking the god of the desert. All of a sudden, you've got these flying, biting insects all over the place. Now, I don't know about you, but in the summertime, if I'm at a picnic, and Mary and I like to go on picnics, we've got our food spread out. Normally, if I'm at a picnic, I want some body of water to be in front of me. I'm a Michigan boy.

In Michigan, you're never more than six miles away from a river, stream, pond, or lake. Probably maybe the same thing is true in Illinois. But I like water. I could never live in a desert. No way. So I would have water in front of me. But sometimes you've got water in front of you. Then you've got these things called mosquitoes. And one mosquito can drive me nuts. You know, it seems to always be in my good ear. It doesn't go to my deaf ear. It goes to my good ear. It's buzzing around. Can you imagine if these things were just swarming all over you? The irritant that would be? You've got the things happening with the river and all the other things that have happened to this point. But you've got all these nasty insects, and they're biting you. They're biting you. They're not just, it's not just their sound of their wings. They're biting you. And so this plague probably was an attack against Seth, the god of the desert.

It looks like that God was saying something specifically to the priesthood here. You know, you guys thought that you can do whatever you pleased, but now you can't. Just as Satan had to get permission from God when he was working with Job, these guys had to be allowed to do certain things, and God says, nope, no more for you. No more for you. The magicians were unable to duplicate this miracle. They admitted that they didn't have the power to do that. So false ministers present us with false Christs, false grace, a counterfeit plan of God, and just like the desert, they're barren. And I bring that up rather, and from time to time, I've not noticed it so much here in Chicago, but I have noticed it in my various travels of various places I've pastored, where people tell me they listen to so-and-so on the radio, or they, you know, the Bible answer man, or this or that of the other. We don't want that. We don't want that. We have no need of that. Not that we're better than other people, but God has opened up our minds to see the truth and to embrace the truth and to hold onto that trunk of the tree firmly.

Never let it go. Let's look at 1 Timothy chapter 3.

1 Timothy chapter 3.

Paul writing to young Timothy here.

1 Timothy 3, 15.

But if I am delayed, I write to you that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, the house of God, which is the church of the living God.

And as I gave in a sermon not that long ago, we understand from the New Testament, 12 times either the church of God, the church of the living God, in one case the church of Christ, churches of God, God defines who his church is by a name. Now, we need more than just a name. We need to be doctrinally correct. We've got churches of God in our society that keep Sunday.

So, again, you've got to put all the facts together. But God's church is named the Church of God. But notice the end part there of verse 15. That the church of the living God is the pillar and the ground of the truth. The pillar and the ground of the truth.

Our God is a life-giving God. His ways are fruitful and productive. They can't be duplicated by anybody or anything.

John chapter 15 and verse 5.

John chapter 15 and verse 5.

I am the vine, you are the branches, he who abides in me, in Jesus Christ, in God the Father. He who abides in me, and I in him, bears much fruit. For without me, you can do nothing.

Without being firmly attached to the vine, we can't do anything.

And over the years, like I said, I think it was last time I was with you this coming September.

I was ordained in September of 1979. So 39 years is coming September. I've been in the ministry. Five years as a local church elder and the rest as a full-time employee of the church. And over the time, I've seen too many people who are so loosely attached to the vine. You wondered if they were getting any nutrients of that vine.

This Passover season, brother, let that not be said of us.

Let it be said of us that we are so full of the fruits of God's Spirit, the sap coming from that vine to us. It's undeniable who our Father is as we think about our preparation for the Passover.

Okay, we're about to move on to the fourth plague, but I want to read something again from our UCG Bible commentary. And again, I reference this quite often. I'm hoping that you do as well. It's a tremendous star house of information. And I'm quote, Before sending the fourth plague, God says that He will prevent it and the remainder of the plagues from affecting the Israelites in Goshen. Thus, the first three plagues have been experienced by everyone, including the Israelites. But the seven last plagues, out of the ten, afflict the Egyptians only. That the seven last plagues are distinct is quite interesting in light of the fact that we actually find that phrase in Revelation chapter 15 and verse 1, in reference to the final plagues poured out on rebellious mankind, following a period of suffering that will come upon God's people, both physical and spiritual, and on the rest of the world, and just as in Egypt, God's people at the end time will be spared the seven last plagues.

So Israel had to experience the first three. Could it be? With all their moaning and groaning about the present evil world in Egypt? Could it be that when a time was really right to leave and to forsake Egypt, they still had issues where they wanted to look over their shoulder like Lot's wife?

And again, brethren, I ask myself, you ask yourself, we talk about God's kingdom coming, but are we are we hanging on a little too hard to this world and this world society? Things of this world. Are we hanging on a little too tight? Something for us to consider.

So the lesson for plague number three is that God and His ways can't be duplicated. Moving on to the fourth of the fifth that we'll be covering today. Fourth plague overview.

Plague of the flies. This one is fairly lengthy section. Exodus chapter 8, verse 20 through verse 32. Again, a number of gods here. We're going to see that in a moment. There was a god represented by a fly. You atch it. If I'm pronouncing it properly, you atch it. I'll spell it for you. And you can pronounce it whatever way you want to. If you know an Egyptian who speaks the lingo, then fine. This god's name is spelled U-A-T. U-A-T-C-H-I-T. To me, it looks like you atch it.

Lessons learned. Two. Two lessons learned here. There's a gulf between the true and the false gods. And secondly, don't compromise. Don't compromise. Let's go back to Exodus chapter 8, verse 20.

And the Lord said to Moses, Rise early in the morning and stand before Pharaoh as he comes out to the water. Then say to him, Thus says the Lord, Let my people go that they may serve me. Or else if you will not let my people go, behold, I will send swarms of flies on you and your servants and on your people and into your houses. The houses of the Egyptians shall be full of swarms of flies and also the ground in which they stand. And in that day I will set apart the land of Goshen.

So now God says, Okay, I am a great God. It is within my purview, it's within my power, to show there's a difference between the people I'm working with and the people I'm not working with. In that day I will set apart the land of Goshen in which my people dwell, that no swarms of flies shall be there in order that you may know that I am the Lord in the midst of the land. Again, God didn't hate the Egyptians. God wanted him to realize who the true God was.

God was not calling them then, but God was working with them to enlighten them at that point along certain lines. And I'll make verse 23, I'll make a difference between my people and your people. Tomorrow the sign shall be. So God's calling his shot here. In baseball, there was a time when people thought that Babe Ruth called a one-home run. He took his bat, supposedly was pointing to center field, and then he hit a home run to center field. So debate whether he was calling his shot. God's calling his shot here. Verse 24, And the Lord did so. Thick swarms of flies came into the house of Pharaoh, into his servants' houses, and into all the land of Egypt. And land was corrupted because of the swarms of flies. And Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron, said, Go sacrifice to your God in the land. Now, is that what God wanted them to do?

To sacrifice to God in Egypt? What do we see here? We see where Pharaoh, under the gun, not wanting to lose his slaves, is compromising. Compromise.

And Moses said, It's not right to do so if we would be sacrificing the abomination of the Egyptians to Lord our God. If the Israelites were sacrificing either cattle or from the flocks, those were some of the Egyptian gods. Those were some of the Egyptian gods. And so the Egyptians would be doubly mad at them for doing that. So, Moses says, Logically, this doesn't work. In the middle of verse 26, If we sacrifice the abominations of the Egyptians before their eyes, then they will stone us. We will go three days' journey into the wilderness and sacrifice the Lord our God as he has commanded us. Three being a number of completeness. Not as complete as the number seven, but getting as far away as Moses was wanting to do here. So Pharaoh said, I will let you go that you may sacrifice the Lord your God in the wilderness, only you shall not go very far away.

The second compromise.

You know, brethren, Satan, as we heard in today's sermon up by Mr. Demurgeon, Satan wants to push our hot buttons all the time. Just as by typology, when Israel left Egypt, Pharaoh, who represented Satan, Egypt represented society, Pharaoh came after the Israelites when they were leaving. As we leave the world, you think Satan is going to stand by and just highly watch us go? No. He's going to come after us. He's going to bring everything he can after us. Some people say, life was a little easier before I came into the church. And you know, in many ways that's true in the sense that we're in a world with it while everyone has trials. We didn't think about things along those lines.

But once we were in a church, yes, Satan is after us, but we've got God's power. And we never want to forget that. We have got God's power. We're not just like anybody else. We are sons and daughters of the Most High. Pharaoh here says, well, sacrifice in the land. You know, go to any church you want to go to. Or the second thing, well, don't go too far. Don't go too far in keeping the holy days. Don't go too far in tithing. Don't go too far in what you eat. There's a certain mind at work behind the scenes here. And that same mind is wanting to hurt us today, as we heard in today's sermonette. Verse 29, Moses said, Indeed, I am going out from you, and I will entreat the Lord that the swarms of flies may depart tomorrow from the Pharaoh and his servants and from his house, but let Pharaoh not deal deceitfully anymore in not letting the people go to sacrifice to the Lord. So Moses was calling it the way it was. So Moses went out from Pharaoh and treated the Lord. And the Lord did according to the word of Moses. He removed the swarms of flies from Pharaoh from his servants from the people. And notice that last phrase there in verse 31. Not one remained. You ever had flies in your house? I might only have one fly in my house. That's one fly, too many. You know, they always seem to be around you no matter what, or near a window, and you open the window and a stupid fly walks away from the open window. You know, we've all experienced that. And then finally, you know, he's starving to death, and we finally match him against the window. And we're gleeful that we've done that. Then we've got to wash the window. But for Egypt to be so inundated with billions, probably billions of flies, these flying insects, and for not one to remain—and that's what the Bible says, not one remained.

It takes God to do that. It takes God to do that. It can't be done by Satan. It has to be done by the great God. Verse 32, But Pharaoh hardened his heart at that time also, and neither would he let the people go. So there were other gods. I'm not going to get into that now. Time is flying here. So the lessons to be learned, there was a gulf between the true and false gods. We see that here in chapter 8, well, verses 22 and 23.

The land of Goshen was set apart. There was a gulf. The people, you know, God's people weren't going to have to experience these things. So there was a gulf between the true God, the false God, the true believers, the false believers. We see in verse 24 that those flies brought corruption into the area. You know, the flies are probably producing all sorts of larvae. These things are eating everything up. Could have been using some beetles, perhaps some locusts. We don't know what all these flying things were, but they were corrupting the whole land. And then we talked about the compromise. Don't need to go through that anymore, about how Satan wants us to compromise. We do want to turn to Luke chapter 14.

Luke chapter 14.

Talking about us not compromising with the things of God. Luke 14 verse 33. So likewise, whoever of you who does not forsake all that he has cannot be my disciple. We must forsake all. I'm not going to turn here, but in 1 Kings chapter 18 and verse 21. I will read this to you. 1 Kings 18, 21. And Elijah came to all the people and said, How long will you falter between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him. But if Baal, follow him. 2 Kings 18, 22. So the fourth plague, lessons learned, golf between the true and false gods and true and false followers. And secondly, don't compromise. Plague number five. Last plague that we'll go through today.

This was the death of the livestock.

Death of the livestock. It's found in Exodus chapter 9 verses 1 through 7. 2 gods highlighted here. You've got Hathor, one of the great gods of more frequently discussed gods in Egypt, who was the god of joy and fertility. Again, this was a woman with a cow's head.

I don't think Egypt was too great on equal rights.

Then you've got Apis, the bull god. Again, also symbolizing fertility. 3 Lessons learned here. God has a purpose. God has a plan. God is in control.

He's got a purpose. He's got a plan. He is in control. Let's go back to Exodus chapter 9 verses 1 through 7. 1 Then the Lord said to Moses, Go to Pharaoh, and tell him, Thus is the Lord God of the Hebrews. Let my people go, that they may serve me. For if you refuse to let them go, and still hold them, the hand of the Lord will be on your cattle, in the field, and on the horses, on the donkeys, on the camels, on the oxen, and on the sheep, a very severe pestilence. A very severe pestilence. It is thought that this pestilence may well have been anthrax. Very severe. 1 And the Lord will make a difference between the livestock. Notice what God is doing. Not just the difference between the people, but the Lord will make a difference between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of Egypt. So nothing shall die of all that belongs to the children of Israel. Again, where God is, there is life. Where God isn't, there is death.

2 Then the Lord appointed a set time, saying, Tomorrow the Lord will do this thing in the land. Once again, God is calling a shot here.

So the Lord did this thing on the next day, and all the livestock of Egypt died, but all the livestock of the children of Israel not one died. Then Pharaoh sent, and indeed not even one of the livestock of the Israelites was dead.

Doubting Thomas.

Pharaoh didn't want to believe until he sent word to Goshen to say, Well, is it really true that God protected their livestock and not ours? Again, remember, he thought of himself as a god.

But the heart of Pharaoh became hard, and it did not let the people go.

Now, later on in the narrative, we see where there are still animals alive. People say, well, this is a contradiction in Scripture. Not really. When you take a look at the, what's the verse 2 here? Verse 3.

Behold, the hand of the Lord will be on your cattle in the field. The thought is that the animals that were not in buildings, they were the ones that were subjugated. They were the ones who died. Because you're going to see in other places after this point, there are still animals. They're still livestock in various parts of the nation of Israel, of Egypt.

So that's our understanding of that particular set of Scriptures.

So in verse 3 here, when all these animals are dying that are out in the pastures and out in the fields and so forth, this is a tremendous blow not only to their economy, but to their military. I mean, this is a nation, their life's blood was their chariots, their war machine. And you start killing off the horses in great, great numbers, and this affects their ability to wage war, to defend themselves.

And historically speaking, this is another matter, but historically speaking, what happened after these ten plagues? Historically speaking, Egypt was a shadow of its former self. It was eventually conquered.

They themselves became slaves to another entity.

In verses 5 and 6 we see where God calls the shot here. He sets a time. He says, tomorrow this is going to happen. It happened on that day. So again, God was showing that He was in control. He named the plague. He set the time of the plague. He made a difference between Egypt and Israel.

Just as today, brethren, God calls us. He has a plan. He calls us with a holy calling. Let me give you the scripture. 2 Timothy 1, verse 9, calls us with a holy calling. He grants us repentance. Romans 2, verse 4.

He passes over our sins if we were repentant. Romans 3, verse 25.

God gives us His Holy Spirit upon repentance and baptism. Acts 2, verse 38. He writes our names in the Book of Life, Malachi 3, verse 16.

He will resurrect us in a very special order. 1 Corinthians 15, verse 23.

Let's wind this down.

Plagues 1 and 2 are very similar. They picture false gods bringing death, the true God bringing life. Let's take a look at one scripture here in the Book of Deuteronomy. It's probably going to be where I'm going to be going with this.

Deuteronomy 30, verse 19.

I call heaven and earth as a witness today against you that I have set before you life and death. God's of Egypt, God's of Israel. Blessing and cursing. Therefore, choose life that both you and your descendants may live.

Brethren, let's make it a point that you and I are choosing life. That if there's anything in our lives that are the way of death that this Passover season, we've got a plan of attack on those things. And we're going to be in during the days of Unleavened Bread as we think about it. We are we're going to put that plan of into action.

Plague number three. So the first two plagues, false gods bring death, true God brings life. Plague number three, God in his ways can't be duplicated.

Acts chapter four. One scripture here.

Read this every time I give a sermon on the last great day.

Acts chapter four and verse 12. Acts 4, 12.

Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men, by which we must be saved. No other name, no other way.

Satan can counterfeit all he wants to, but cannot duplicate what God does.

Lesson learned number four. A couple of them.

There's a gulf between a true and a false god, and true god and false god's followers, and not the compromise. Referring to compromise, let's look at one scripture. Matthew chapter six.

Matthew chapter six, verse 24.

Matthew 6, 24. No one can serve two masters, for either you will hate the one and love the other, or also be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.

And if you or I have things in our life that we're compromising, we need to admit that and walk away from that. Lesson number five. God has a purpose, a plan, he's in control.

One scripture, final scripture of the day, 2 Timothy chapter one.

Second Timothy chapter one.

Verse eight. Therefore, do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me, his prisoner, but share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began.

God is in control. God has a plan. It says here, before time began, God had that plan.

What is time? As human beings, we count time because of the sun, the moon, our physical universe around us. Before there was a universe, God had a plan. And you were part of that plan. And you've been called, you and I, been called to honor and to worship the true God. We've been called to prepare at this time for the great Passover that's coming at the end of this month.