Sugar Land Bible Church

Dr. Andy Woods: As the children are being dismissed for their Junior Church program, let's take our Bibles this morning and open them to the book of Exodus, chapter 10 and verse one. The title of our message this morning is Freedom and Service. I want to thank Gabe Morris for filling in last week. Did you guys enjoy Gabe's ministry?

We continue in our Sunday morning series through the book of Exodus verse by verse. God, of course, in the book of Exodus, is doing a work of redemption, meaning releasing from bondage. As we're going to see later in the series, primarily through the work of the Passover Lamb, He's releasing from bondage a nation that was in bondage for 400 years to a Pharaoh that knew not Joseph.

Of course, that nation is God's nation, the nation of Israel. God has raised up His vessel that He is using, a man named Moses, who got busy for the Lord at the ripe old age of 80. Once Moses becomes that prepared vessel, God begins to rain down upon Egypt, the known power of the time, various plague judgments.

We are now entering plague number eight, having already studied the Nile turning to blood, frogs, gnats, flies, death of livestock, boils, hail. Cheer up, folks, it gets worse. Chapter 10, we have locusts. Later on in chapter 10, we have darkness. We're going to begin looking today at the locusts. Here is an outline that we can follow as we look at the Lord dealing with Egypt through the plague of locusts.

First of all, we have God's instructions to Moses. How is this going to play out, this judgment? The first thing that God says is He will harden or has hardened Pharaoh's heart. We pick it up there in chapter 10, verse one. It says, "The Lord said to Moses, 'Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, that I might perform these signs of mine among them.'"

Now, this hardening of Pharaoh's heart is something that we have talked about many times. Ed Hindson says for the initial five plagues, the text registers Pharaoh as the agent of hardening. Not until the sixth plague does God participate in the confirmation of Pharaoh's own volitional choices. Charles Ryrie says virtually the same thing. Seven times Pharaoh hardened his own heart before God hardened it, though the prediction that God would do it preceded it all.

This becomes the advantage of studying the Bible chronologically because if you were just to look at a verse like that, it makes God seem extremely cruel to come in and override Pharaoh's free will by hardening his heart. But the truth of the matter as we have studied is Pharaoh has hardened his own heart against God many, many times, where God finally gave Pharaoh over to what he wanted and God now says, "I'm going to contribute to the process. I will harden your heart for you."

So we have the prediction of God hardening Pharaoh's heart, chapter 4, verse 20. Then you see Pharaoh repeatedly hardening his own heart. Not until the sixth plague did God harden Pharaoh's heart. So God, when He deals with man, always respects how He's manufactured man. He's made us in His image. Part of the frightening thing about being made in the image of God is we have volition. We have free will.

But you reach a point in your free will where there's so much rebellion against God that God finally gives people over to what they already wanted to do. That's the frightening thing here that has happened to Pharaoh. By the way, it hasn't just happened to Pharaoh. It's happened to his servants. If you look there very carefully at verse one, it says, "For I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants."

So the issue now becomes why did God do it? The answer is this is a way for God to glorify Himself because He says at the end of verse one, "that I may perform these signs of mine among them." How can God perform signs to release His nation from rebellious bondage if the people holding her in bondage aren't in rebellion? See that?

So somehow in the outworking of God's purposes, God allowed this hardening to occur so He could manifest His signs and wonders all over Egypt. As God was manifesting His signs and wonders all over Egypt, He was receiving the glory. One of the greatest things you could ever learn about God is that God works in history to glorify Himself. He is God and has that right.

This is the heart of the system that we embrace here called traditional dispensationalism. What does that even mean? It means the use of a consistent, plain, normal, literal, grammatical, historical method of interpretation. Meaning we take the whole Bible at face value unless there's an obvious figure of speech in play. Once we do that, it reveals a distinction between Israel and the church.

Israel and the church are two trains on two different railroad tracks. God has a separate program for each. As a talented author, God is capable of bringing together multiple sub-themes that will contribute to His glory. One of those sub-themes is His plan for Israel and His plan for the church. Just like God has a plan for humans and He has a plan for angels.

Then when you deal with the angels, He's got a plan for the unfallen angels and the fallen angels. God has different plans for different groups. That's how to understand this distinction between Israel and the church that we embrace. We don't embrace it just because we like it; we embrace it because it arises out of a normal method of interpretation, trying to take the whole Bible at face value unless a figure of speech is in play.

But what's the end game? What does all of this contribute to? Number three: it contributes to God's overall purpose in history, which is to glorify Himself. The fancy name for this is the doxological purpose of God. God's ultimate purpose for the ages is to glorify Himself. Scripture is not human-centered, as though salvation were the principal point, but God-centered because His glory is at the center.

The glory of God is the primary principle that unifies all of the different ages in the Bible, the program of salvation being just one of those means by which He glorifies Himself. Each successive revelation of God's plan for the ages, as well as His dealings with the elect and the non-elect angels and nations, manifest His glory. God's work in creation is all designed to glorify Himself.

His creation of the world, Genesis 1; His creation of the nations, Genesis 10; His creation of Israel, Genesis 12; His creation of the church, Acts 2. What does all of it designed to do? It contributes to the pinnacle there, His glory. Then His plan of redemption, when His creation went astray, contributes to His glory as well.

The redemption of creation, Romans 8; the judgment of the nations, Matthew 25; the restoration of Israel, Romans 11; the rapture of the church, 1 Thessalonians 4, all contribute to His glory. I used to think that salvation was the center of the Bible, probably thought that way because salvation most affected me. Salvation, though, is not the centerpiece of what God is doing because even when someone gets saved, who gets the glory?

God does. The angels, Luke 15 tells us, rejoice. This is why God is hardening Pharaoh's heart. He's hardening Pharaoh's heart after giving Pharaoh multiple opportunities to repent so God can manifest His judgments all over Egypt. He has the absolute right to do this because He's God. This is how God works in any epoch or any era yesterday, today, and forever.

It's the purpose of your life. A lot of people wonder constantly why am I here? What's the purpose of my life? I can give you that. It's to glorify God. The purpose of your life is to glorify God. That's why you were created. So this helps sort out a lot of the confusion that we're under when we make decisions. We make choices constantly. Should I go this direction or that direction? Should I do this or not do this?

And you just run it through a simple grid: which of these choices will bring God the most glory? When you press into that purpose, you find meaning, you find fulfillment because you're living within the design for which you were created. There's nothing more miserable than living outside of your design. There's nothing more miserable than trying to use a screwdriver to hammer a nail when that's not the purpose of the screwdriver.

Many, many people are struggling with life, they're frustrated with life, they're unfulfilled in life because they've never really pressed into their central purpose, which is to use you to glorify Himself. He glorifies Himself through you differently than the way He uses me to glorify Himself and differently than the way the person sitting next to you is used by God. But it's all contributory to the big picture.

God works in history to glorify Himself. That's what He is doing with these plagues. This is why the hardening of Pharaoh's heart has happened. God has a purpose in it. He wants what He has done here communicated. You see that beautifully discussed there in verse two: "that you may tell in the hearing of your son and of your grandson how I made a mockery of the Egyptians and how I performed My signs among them, that you may know that I am the Lord."

In other words, as I glorify Myself and you witness these plagues, don't just sit, soak, and sour, but communicate these truths through the generational lines. Fathers, communicate it to your sons, communicate it to your grandsons. This is what is known as the Hebrew Shema, which we just heard about in the missions moment. We didn't even compare notes ahead of time, did we?

Deuteronomy 6, verses 4 through 7: "Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! These words which I am commanding you today shall be upon your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons. You shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up." This is how spiritual truth is to be disseminated through the generations, first and foremost, primarily through the family.

There's something very interesting that happens in Joshua chapter 4, verses 19 through 24, after the miraculous drying up of the Jordan had taken place as the nation of Israel was entering the promised land. God says this: "Now the people came up from the Jordan on the tenth of the first month and camped at Gilgal on the eastern edge of Jericho. Those twelve stones which they had taken from the Jordan, Joshua set up at Gilgal." A monument, in other words.

"He said to the sons of Israel, 'When'—not if—'your children ask their fathers'—not their youth pastor. We love youth pastors, but a youth pastor was never designed to replace or circumvent what is happening in the home. "He said to the sons of Israel, 'When your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, "What are these stones?" then you shall inform your children, saying, "Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground. For the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan before you until you had crossed, just as the Lord our God had done to the Red Sea, which He dried up before us until we had crossed."'"

Is this an effective teaching channel? Well, verse 24 of Joshua 4 says, "so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty, so that you may fear the Lord your God forever." Here's the way it's supposed to work: set up this monument, set up these stones, and there's going to come a time where your children, your grandchildren are going to ask their fathers, "Hey, Dad, what are these stones doing here?"

And now, Dad, is your opportunity. You can explain to them what these stones represent. They represent a miracle God did for our generation, the drying up of the Jordan, and don't stop there; talk about the miracle that God did for the prior generation, the drying up of the Red Sea. As this information is being transmitted within the family line, the whole earth is going to know about the knowledge of the Lord.

We just heard in the missions moment how there, in the book of Judges, arose a generation that knew not the Lord nor the things the Lord had done for the nation of Israel. The channel of communication, the transmission of spiritual information, was short-circuited. That's why I love what he said in the missions moment: this is something that the church-age believer is to follow.

You can jot down Ephesians chapter 6, verse 4, and it's something that Old Testament Israel was to follow as well. That is your job, Dad, as the head of the family. That's your responsibility. It is not something that can be outsourced to a youth pastor or a Christian college. Are we in favor of youth pastors and Christian colleges? Of course we are. But they can only reinforce what is already happening in the home.

My first pastorate, I was very young, and the man that was retiring, I was replacing him there in Southern California. He gave me a lesson I'll never forget. He goes, "I want you to watch very carefully these families that come to church, and you'll notice two patterns. The first pattern is parents that will use this church as a babysitting service.

They drop the kids off, they go off and do their thing, maybe read the paper, take in some coffee, go out to breakfast, catch something related to sports, and then they'll come back and pick their kids up and take them home. That's pattern A. The second pattern are parents that bring their children to this church but actually stay at the church while their children are here and participate in the worship service, become contributing members of the church, etc. That would be pattern B.

And he says, "I want you to watch what happens to the kids of both groups when they reach a certain age, let's say 16, or maybe a little earlier, 15, 16, 17, 18, right in there, when they are old enough to make their own decisions." He said to me, "Invariably, the children of the parents that use the church as a babysitting service, essentially what will happen is those children will leave the church.

They won't be around the church anymore. But the parents of those who role-modeled church attendance, church membership, church contribution, etc., now those kids, once they hit high school, college age, will stick with the church." That was a very powerful lesson that he gave me because he was showing me that God has intended for spiritual transmission to take place within the family unit.

No gifting in terms of a pastor or a choir or a music leader or a Christian college can be used to circumvent basic parental responsibility. You can preach the importance of church attendance to your kids and your grandkids until you're blue in the face, but the greatest sermon they're ever going to hear is if you're actually here when they're here because they now see that church is a big deal.

You can preach and teach your kids in the home the necessity of prayer until you're blue in the face, but it's totally different when Mom and Dad say to the rest of the family unit, "You know, we need to get down on our knees and praise the Lord today," or there's some kind of financial crisis in the family, "Let's pray together." Now, that's a sermon that'll preach because it's role-modeled via behavior.

This is why, I think to a large extent, we're losing generations. People have all kinds of reasons as to why Christianity seems to be in decline here in the West, here in North America. We want to blame this or blame that, blame Washington, D.C., or whatever. But what is going on in the home? Because that is God's unit of spiritual transformation and transmission.

The greatest truths I ever learned as a young person about God came from my own dad. We were Episcopalian, and I don't remember an awful lot of spiritual truth in that Episcopalian church. But I remember this: I remember the sermons that my dad gave me driving back and forth. Those I remember. Remember thinking to myself as a very young person, this God stuff is real because it was patterned in my family; it was patterned by my father.

This is the type of thing that is happening here in the book of Exodus. I'm going to perform these plagues, these ten signs all over Egypt, and you know what? I'm doing it because I'm God and I have a right to glorify Myself. What you need to do is you need to start teaching these things, starting with the family unit through the generations. That's how there will arise a generation that knows God. But we know tragically, we heard it earlier from the book of Judges, there arose a generation that knew not God.

How do you go from the Joshua generation to the Judges generation? The Joshua generation was a winning generation; the Judges generation is a losing generation. We heard it earlier; it only takes a generation. What went wrong? This went wrong. Deuteronomy 6, verses 4 through 7 went wrong. I think Ken Ham has a book out called "Already Gone," dealing with the fact that we have so many people leaving Christianity when they hit college.

The premise of the book is their decision to leave Christianity happened a long time ago, and it relates to Mom and Dad. It relates to the parents not taking or making spiritual things a priority. But if we're just faithful to the model, not just preaching and teaching those in our family, but role-modeling Christianity, the knowledge of God according to Joshua 4, that I just read verse 24, has the potential of covering the entire earth.

So these are the instructions of God, and now Moses and Aaron come and they speak to Pharaoh. Verses 3 through 6, you see the entrance. Verse 3: "Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said to him, 'Thus says the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, "How long will you refuse to humble yourself before Me? Let My people go that they may serve Me."'" So they enter Pharaoh's presence, they pose a question here to Pharaoh.

"Thus says the Lord, the God of the Hebrews." Who are the Hebrews? It's the children of Israel. That's the nation of Israel. This is the special nation that God formed, the physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. As we've studied the book of Genesis, we've seen in the book of Genesis God has several names. Did you catch number seven there? It's in Genesis 33, verse 20. He calls Himself "God, the God of Israel."

You say, well, is God a God of a particular nation? You bet your bottom dollar He is. He discloses Himself as the God of the nation of Israel. I don't see any statute of limitations on this because a lot of people and an awful lot of podcasters are right now trying to convince you that all of the Israel stuff is canceled and everything has been transferred to the church.

Psalm 121 and verse 4 says, "Behold, He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep." Yeah, but the Israelis, they're in rebellion generally speaking. Not that individual Jews can't get saved today, but it's—come on, Pastor, it's an unbelieving nation. Well, guess what you have to be before you can be a believer? You've got to be an unbeliever. God has never stopped being the Lord of that particular nation.

He's identified here as the God of the Hebrews. Hebrews is just a synonym for the Jewish nation. You remember what Potiphar's wife said, the false accusation she raised against Joseph, Genesis 39 and verse 14? She called to the men of her household and said to them, "See, he has brought in a Hebrew to make sport of us. He came in to lie with me and I screamed." Joseph was accused of a crime he never committed, but in the process of the accusation, she calls him a Hebrew.

That's probably one of the first references I can find in the scripture, maybe there are others, to using Hebrew as a synonym for the nation of Israel. God says, "I am their God. In that sense, I'm a nationalistic God. I formed them, I made promises to them, I'm going to make sure all of those promises are fulfilled." Yeah, but I thought God loved all of us. He does. He died and shed His blood for all of us.

The Great Commission is to make disciples of all nations. But that doesn't subtract or detract from the point that He has a special nationalistic relationship with Israel. He is using that relationship to even teach the angels truths about His character. Be very careful about this theology today that has become so popular where Andy Stanley made a statement that we should unhitch from the Old Testament.

That's like sitting in the second floor of my house saying, "You know, I really like the office I have here. I like my computer, I like my built-in library, I like the wallpaper, I like the staircase. But, you know, the foundation of the house, who needs that?" That's the silliness of making a statement that we should unhitch from the Old Testament. Here's the truth of the matter: the nation of Israel can explain its existence really well without the church.

But the church cannot explain its existence without Israel. Israel being the foundation, read the book of Acts, we're studying it Wednesday nights, how the church arose from a Jewish remnant from wayward national Israel, God having different purposes for Israel and different programs for the church. Yes, He is the God of the Hebrews. This is what Moses and Aaron say to Pharaoh.

Which would be sort of scary for Pharaoh to understand: you're putting in bondage God's nation. You know, as people are ranting against Israel today, all kinds of slurs against Israel, I've personally never seen anything like this in all my years of being a Christian. I've not seen so many rants and attacks and criticism of the nation of Israel. Not that they're above criticism, but it seems to me that these attacks have gone so far that they actually delegitimize whether Israel should be a real state or not.

They treat Israel with one standard that they would never apply to any other nation. When it moves into delegitimization and defamation and double standards, you're tampering with God's firstborn son. Exodus 4, I think it's around verse 24, God calls the nation of Israel His firstborn son. The prophet Zechariah, chapter 2 and verse 8, God calls Israel the apple or the pupil of His eye.

You move into delegitimization, defamation, double standards against Israel, and it's almost like you're taking your finger and you're jamming it into God's eyeball and you're daring Him to act. Because He's a nationalistic God. All of their sins and problems, believe me, God is well aware of that, and He's very good at putting them under discipline if need be. But don't develop a belief system that says God is through with the Jew.

Because if He can wash His hands of the Jew, He can wash His hands of you, right? I mean, how do you trust God to keep any promise if He's going to break His covenantal relationship with the nation of Israel? So He is the God of the Hebrews and Moses and Aaron are saying to Pharaoh, "How long are you going to keep these people in bondage?"

And really, why was Pharaoh keeping them in bondage? It's right there in verse three: "How long will you refuse to humble yourself before Me?" God speaking through Moses and Aaron. Isn't that what sin is? It's a lack of humility. It's an idea that says God's way is not the right way; it's my way, which is the height of arrogance.

First Peter chapter 5 and verse 5 says, "You younger men, likewise, be subject to your elders; and all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another." Listen to this: "For God is opposed to the proud, but He gives grace to the humble." You mean there are certain people on planet Earth walking around today that God is opposed to? Yes, there are. Those are people that are arrogant.

That's the problem with Pharaoh; it's really the problem with all sins. We substitute our own will over the will of God. We certainly don't follow Jesus when He had an opportunity to circumvent the cross. How many people would have taken that opportunity in a nanosecond? He wanted an out, but He said there in the garden, "Not My will, but Thy will be done."

The Son of Man has not come into the world to do His own will; the Son of Man has come into the world to do the will of My Father who is in heaven. We're not like that when we sin. Pharaoh is not like that. Moses and Aaron call Pharaoh out on this and they say to him, "Let My people go that they may serve Me." That's why I titled this sermon Freedom and Service because it's a type, it's a microcosm of what God wants to do in the life of every human being.

He wants to free them. Free them from what? Egyptian bondage in this case, but we're under a bondage and a tyrant that's worse than Egypt; it's called original sin. It has horrific consequences. Humanity is hurling towards a Christless existence without the intervention and the grace of God because of original sin. God wants to set you free of that.

Jesus in John chapter 8, verse 32 says, "You will know the truth and the truth will make you miserable." Doesn't say that, does it? "You will know the truth and the truth will set you free." Truth is your friend, although sometimes it's a bitter pill to swallow at first. John 8, verse 36, Jesus speaking, says, "So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed."

Think about that: the full debt of sin is paid for, I trust in what Jesus did in my place, and the terrible tyrant of sin is now disabled in my life. The ball and chain is gone. The eternal consequences and repercussions are gone. God gives me new resources at the point of faith alone in Christ alone to live a lifestyle above sin, not a sinless lifestyle, but hopefully one that's sinning less.

Some Christians make much better progress in that area than others, but the potential is there. The freedom is there. Then there'll come a point in time where I'll be in glorification, as will you, and it will be as if sin never existed at all. Read the last two chapters of the book and you'll see it: the eternal state where sin never enters again. Complete and total freedom.

I know people that won't come near Jesus because they think if they get near Jesus, He's going to ruin everything. What a deception. John chapter 10, verse 10: "The thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy; but I have come that they may have life and have it to the full, have it in abundance." That's the end game of God for your life, for my life. It's living life as it was intended to be lived before sin entered the picture.

Now, after He sets us free, what does He want us to do? It's in Ephesians 2, verses 8 through 10: "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast." Don't quit reading there. I've read this verse for years and I always stop at verse 9. What about verse 10?

"For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we might"—subjunctive mood, *peripateo*—"that we might walk in them." It's not a guarantee I'll walk in these good works, but the potential is there. I'm not saved *by* good works, but I'm saved *for* good works. Boy, what a deal this is.

God wants to set me free from the tyranny of sin, and after the chains are gone and I've been set free, as we sang about earlier today, He then wants to start to express Himself through my life so that other people can be eternally touched. I'm not just set free; that would be good enough. I'm set free to serve. I don't serve God because I'm afraid He's going to rip the carpet out from me, under me.

I serve God because I can't believe what I have. Romans 12, verse 1 says what's the reasonable thing to do? Offer your body as a living sacrifice. Why would you do that? In light of His mercies, you would do that. Not because you're afraid He's going to renege on His word; that's nothing more than works salvation. You offer your body as a living sacrifice to the Lord because you just can't believe what He did for you.

Paul the Apostle, perfect example. Look at the blood on his hands, how he persecuted the church of God. He was the one that was holding the cloaks of those that threw rocks to the point of martyrdom of the first martyr of the church age, a man named Stephen. You'll see this at the end of Acts 7 into Acts 8 early on.

And God entered Saul of Tarsus's life and set him free from all of that sin, shame, and guilt. If that weren't enough, He turned him into an apostle. He calls himself "apostle untimely born." He calls himself over and over again the least and the last of the apostles. And He used him to write two-thirds of the New Testament epistles. He used him to go on three missionary journeys, plant countless churches, take the gospel all the way to Rome.

And I think of all the things that caused Saul, then Paul, to sort of tear up—because he was a crier, this guy Paul. Read Acts 20, how he warned the Ephesian elders about false teachers to the point of tears. I think what really got him emotional was not just the fact that he had been set free, but that God actually started to use his life to advance the purposes of God.

That's why the nation of Israel is being set free here. They're being set free to serve. They're going to be given specific instructions about it at Mount Sinai. But this is a miracle that God is doing with people constantly. He's setting them free and then He starts using them for eternal things. What kind of a God is this? He's a God of grace. He's a God of love, He's a God of mercy.

He's a God that when you ask Him for something, He gives you above and beyond what you deserve. What if Pharaoh won't listen? There's a consequence. There's always a consequence, isn't there, to not listening to God? Adam and Eve, Adam in the garden, was given a consequence. Tree of Life is good for you—I'm paraphrasing a little bit—the other tree will kill you. In fact, the day you eat from it is the day you'll die.

There was a clear blessing for obedience, curse for disobedience, and a consequence is given to Pharaoh here. It says, "For if you refuse to let My people go, behold, tomorrow"—so it's timed. It's not a weather thing. The History Channel says the wind just blew in at the right time and all the locusts came. No, this is a timed, precise prophecy.

"For if you refuse to let My people go, behold, tomorrow I will bring locusts into your territory." There's always a consequence for disobeying God. Galatians 6 and verse 8: "For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption." Proverbs 13, verse 15, I like the way the King James translates this: "The way of the transgressor is hard."

The devil wants you to think live your life the way you want and you'll enjoy emancipation, another deception. If you really want to be fulfilled, you really want to be content—this is the doctrine of humanism that's taught around the clock in the American educational system: man is the center of all things, God if He exists at all is irrelevant. If you really want to be fulfilled, then as the old beer commercial used to say, "Go for the gusto."

I think it said something like that, not that I'm a big fan, maybe it's good I don't know the commercial too well. They run this commercial and they give you this impression that look how happy these people are, they're living without God. When the reality is you start living without God, you're living outside of your design and suddenly you're in bondage without even knowing you're in bondage until it's too late.

Jesus comes along and gives you an offer to release you from that bondage. Then He says, "Not only have I released you from this bondage, I want you to serve Me." And you start serving the Lord and you start discovering this is why I'm here. You start to experience a fulfillment that you couldn't experience any other way. But if you don't want to go that direction, there is a consequence.

By the way, God through all of these plagues is attacking the Egyptian polytheistic pantheon. You'll see number eight there: He's attacking Seth, Nut—that's a good name for an Egyptian deity—and Osiris. Ed Hindson says the Egyptian deities challenged by this plague would have been Serapia, whose specialty was protecting the Egyptians from locust infestations.

As these locusts are going to be unleashed, the Egyptians are going to think to themselves, well, this Serapia thing's not working out very well. As well as the same gods challenged by the previous plague: Shu and Nut, the respective sky god and goddess; Seth and Isis, the respective god and goddesses charged with providing weather conditions conducive to agriculture; and Osiris, the god charged with crop production.

These are the entities that Egypt would worship and God says, "I'm about ready to take a battle ax to all of them." Because He's after idols. He does not like it when we elevate in our heart gods—little g—above Himself. He'll take them to Sinai and He'll give them ten commandments. Here's the first two: "You shall have no other gods before Me."

And then number two: "You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth." Isaiah chapter 42 and verse 8: "I am the Lord, that is My name; I will not give My glory to another, nor My praise to graven images." You want to set God against your path? Start to elevate something in your mind or heart other than Him.

Doesn't have to be a statue. It could be anything that you look to to gain worth or security. It could be health, it could be looks, it could be finances, it could be a career, it could be a retirement plan. Those things in and of themselves not necessarily wrong, but they become wrong when they take on a disproportionate importance in our hearts.

God will start to wage war against those things. He's waged war against so many of these things in my life, I've run out of space trying to keep up with it all. "Oh, you're trusting in this today. Well, let's watch this break down. Oh, you're trusting in that today. Watch what I do over here." That's what He's doing with the Egyptians because He wants the place of preeminence, which He deserves.

And then you go down to verses 5 and 6 and you see the severity of this judgment of locusts that's coming. "They will cover the surface of the land"—these locusts—"so that no one will be able to see the land. They will also eat the rest of what has escaped, what is left to you from the hail, and they shall eat every tree which sprouts for you out of the field.

Then your houses shall be filled and the houses of all of your servants and the houses of all the Egyptians, something which neither your fathers nor your grandfathers have seen from the day that they came upon the earth until this day." So these locusts will come, Pharaoh, if you persist in your rebellion against God. They're going to cover the land.

In fact, they're going to be so extensive in covering the land you won't be able to see what's in front of you. And the crops that you've worked so hard in maintaining, the locusts are going to come and consume them, and every tree. And they're going to be inside your houses. And Pharaoh, they're coming into your house, and they're coming into your servants' house. And this is a judgment that will go down in history as something that Egypt, the known political power of the time, has never, ever seen before.

And there's a lot of history in Egypt. I mean, I've been to Egypt, I've seen the pyramids, I've gotten the tours of the kings and Pharaohs going way, way back into time, even into the time of Abraham. Abraham, in 2000 BC, likely saw the pyramids of Egypt. I mean, there's just a ton of history. By the way, no extra charge for this, but the Palestinians can't show anything like that because Palestinian is made up.

It's designed to reduce the borders of Israel through propaganda and to create a terrorist zone within the land of Israel. That's what this whole Palestinian thing is about. Show me the Palestinian archaeology? Can't do it. Show me the Palestinian currency? Can't do that in history. Show me the Palestinian rulers? Can't do that. But I tell you, Egypt, they can show everything because Egypt is real history.

And in spite of that history, there's something that's coming upon Egypt that Egypt has never, ever, ever faced. It will be unprecedented. Charles Ryrie says of these locusts—because we have a tendency to think these are like little fruit flies or gnats, you know, or fly gets loose in your house, you've got your fly swatter. No, no, no.

Charles Ryrie says, quote, "One of the most destructive creatures, a swarm may have an average density of 130 million locusts per square mile. They can denude hundreds of square miles quickly, bringing horror, despair, and terrible economic consequences to the inhabitants." That's why Moses is very clear here and Aaron: "You resist the Lord, Pharaoh, and something unprecedented is about ready to happen."

Well, gee, Pastor, great history lesson. Let's close in prayer. Not quite. By the way, my air conditioning up here went off. I don't know if that is by design? You guys don't have air conditioning either? All of the air conditioning went out. Well, that's—is that nonverbal communication trying to tell me to wrap up the sermon?

I was wondering why I was sweating. I talked about hell in the first hour. Every time I talk about hell, I start sweating and I thought that's what it was. All right, well, we'll see if we can get through verse six. It'll only take three hours to do that. So it's not just unprecedented judgment coming upon Egypt. This is not just a history lesson; this is a type of what is coming. Do you understand that?

There's coming upon this whole world unprecedented judgment. What's happening here in Egypt is small potatoes compared to what's coming. It's called the seven-year tribulation period. We read about it in Revelation chapters 6 through 19. Seal judgments, trumpet judgments, golden bowl of wrath judgments.

And do you realize by the time you get to trumpet number six that a quarter of the world's population is wiped out? I said trumpet six; it's a seal, seal judgment. I can't remember what number it is, maybe number four. But a quarter of the world's population is wiped out. It's like taking your hand, you've got four fingers up, and just like that, one of four is gone.

And then by the time you get to the sixth trumpet judgment, it says a third of the world is wiped out in terms of its population. So I'll just take one finger—I've got three left—take one finger and put it down and I only have two fingers left. And that's just the first half. In the first half of the tribulation period, 50% of the world's population will be completely and totally wiped out.

This is not just a prophecy about something that's going to happen in Egypt; it is that, but read the rest of the Bible. There are even locust judgments associated with these Revelation judgments. Joel talked about this time period. You know, Joel talked about locusts, too, but his prophecies merged into the end-time judgments.

And he says this: "There has never been anything like it, nor will there be again after it." Daniel 12 and verse 1 says, "And there will be a time of distress such as never occurred since there was a nation until that time." Jeremiah spoke of it. He says, "Alas! For that day is great, there is none like it; and it is a time of Jacob's distress, but he, Jacob or Israel, will be saved from it."

Jesus talked about it in Matthew 24, verses 21 and 22. He said, "For then there will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever will. Unless those days had been cut short, no life would have been saved. But for the sake of the elect, Israel, those days will be cut short." In other words, if God allowed this coming judgment to go outside of its seven-year parameters, everyone would be dead.

Why are you bringing this to our attention, Pastor? This is not a warm, fuzzy thought for the day. I'm bringing this to your attention because we have a tendency to look at the book of Exodus as a history lesson. "Oh, all that stuff is behind us." No, it isn't. It's in front of us. And the Lord has made provision for us.

And how does this unit end? Verse 6: "And he, that's Moses, turned and went out from Pharaoh." This is the leader of the known world. And typically when you have a meeting with the leader of the known world, there's some kind of royal dismissal. You don't just turn your back and walk out. So what is happening here is a total breach of protocol, where they just turn around and leave.

And it shows you how thin the patience of the Lord is with Pharaoh. No pomp and circumstance, no normal protocol, just cut short and they leave. God is a God of love and He is a God of mercy. But everything I know about God is that He is growing impatient with the evil in our world. To watch the progress of evil in our world and to think that God will never do anything to act in judgment is the height of self-deception.

And you can't really understand the good news until you understand the bad news, right? This is the bad news. The good news is Jesus stepped out of eternity into time. He bore in His body a penalty that I can't pay and you can't pay. He came into the world to fix a problem that we can't fix. It's called original sin. It's what we're commemorating as we enter Holy Week, Palm Sunday, so-called Good Friday, Resurrection Sunday.

All of these things are coming up on our calendar. And what is it that we're celebrating? We're celebrating the entrance of the Son of God into our world. He stepped out of eternity into time to fix a problem I can't fix, that only He could fix as God, the God-man. His final words on the cross were, "It is finished."

And what we are to do is we are to receive what He did in our place as a gift. And the only way to receive a gift from God, Romans 4 verses 4 and 5, is to believe. They came to Jesus in John 6, verses 28 and 29, and they said, "What must we do to do the works of God?" Sounds like good religious people, right? "What do we gotta do?" Jesus said, "This is the work: that you believe in the one that He has sent."

That's the ticket out. That's the escape hatch. That's the golden parachute, whatever you want to call it. That's the way out of a problem that for human beings is unsolvable: original sin. And so we would encourage people within the sound of our voice to be placing their personal trust in Jesus. It's not a matter of walking an aisle, joining a church, filling out a card, giving money. It's a personal privacy between you and the Lord where the Lord convicts you of your need to do this and you respond by placing your trust, which is another word for faith, in the finished work of Jesus.

In so doing, you're in essence saying, "I can't fix myself, I can't save myself, but He can." It's what the penitent thief did. Jesus, crucified between two thieves. One thief mocked Jesus right to the end. The other thief exercises faith in Christ. "Remember me," he said, "when you enter your kingdom." He said, "Today, today, you will be with me in paradise."

Not "hang in there, buddy"—not literally and metaphorically—"hang in there. Let's see how the next fifteen minutes goes, if you're going to persevere in the faith," something like that. Because they were, as you know, about the crucifixion, they were suffocating. That's why the legs were broken, to prevent them from pushing up to get their next breath or gasp of air. He just says, "Today you'll be with me in paradise."

Not even a baptism was performed. You guys see our new baptismal tank down here? Nobody wheeled that out. Nobody threw water on him. It's just a simple—nothing about church membership, filling out a card, repenting of all your known sins, all these things that the religious world wants you to do. Just simple. Today, you'll be with Me in paradise.

We encourage everyone within the sound of my voice to do the same thing: just put your trust in what Jesus did, and you're given that immediate, reciprocal promise of the assurance of salvation. Don't hold out for a better deal, folks, because it ain't coming. This is the greatest news you could ever hear.

Let's pray. Father, we're grateful for Your word, grateful for Your truth, grateful for these first six verses in Exodus chapter 10. Thank You for Your grace that You give us. Lord, if anyone is here and does not know You personally and they need some questions answered, I would encourage them to seek me out after the service as I am available. We'll be careful to give You all the praise and the glory. We ask these things in Jesus' name. And God's people said, "Amen."