Sugar Land Bible Church

Dr. Andy Woods: Look this morning, Lord willing, at verses 29 through 32. The title of our message this morning is "Liberation Day." We've been reading a lot about bondage and the subjugation of a nation, the nation of Israel. Well, guess what? Everything changes at this point because now they get the green light to leave Egypt, as we'll see.

God has been so faithful to His chosen people, the nation of Israel, that He has not forgotten His promises to them. Going really back to the time of Abraham, that they would be in a land under a people who would subjugate them, but in the fourth generation or 400 years later, they would come out with great possessions. God has accomplished this through a process of sending the 10 plagues upon Egypt, as we have studied. We've seen the water to blood, the frogs, the gnats, the flies, the disease on the cattle, the boils, the hail, the locusts, and the darkness.

Here we are at number 10. This would be the plague that finally breaks the back of the Pharaoh that knew not Joseph that is subjugating them: the death of the firstborn. It's interesting God calls the nation of Israel, in Exodus 4:22, His firstborn. As the nation of Egypt has been subjugating Israel, God says, "I'm going to take it out on your firstborn." This is a reminder of what God promised in the Abrahamic promises: that those who curse you, I will curse. These promises, as we have seen, are very literal; they're almost in-kind.

So here we are with plague number 10, the death of the firstborn. God in Exodus 12 has explained to Moses what is about to happen. He's explained to him the Passover, the instructions concerning the Passover, meaning the destruction will pass over the Jewish homes, even though the rest of Egypt will fall under this judgment when God sees the blood of the Passover lamb applied in faith to the doorposts of their homes.

There have been very specific instructions about the Passover lamb. It must be an unblemished lamb. When you sacrifice it, you can't break any of its bones. All of this, of course, is typological of Jesus. This is why when John the Baptist saw Jesus coming to be baptized by him, he said, "Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world." Paul, in 1 Corinthians 5:7, calls Jesus our Passover. So the instructions have been given, and these events are so certain God says that not if they happen, but when they happen, here's how you're to celebrate it throughout the generations.

You've seen introduced in this chapter specific instructions that will show up on the Jewish calendar: one being Passover, the second being Unleavened Bread. The Jewish calendar system, the first of what would become the spring feasts of Israel. Then there are going to be some instructions concerning the fall feasts that have not yet been described thus far in divine revelation, but one of them the nation of Israel is celebrating right now as we speak. Do you know what it is? Rosh Hashanah, or New Years.

Isn't it interesting that 3,500 years later, the nation of Israel and Jewish people are still celebrating these feasts? That in and of itself is an outworking of prophecy because God says when these feasts are implemented—He's mentioned the first two here, Passover and Unleavened Bread—you are to celebrate them forever. So here is the nation of Israel, outside of its land for all of this time, outside of its land for 2,000 years, and they go right back into the same land, speaking the same language, celebrating the same feasts. You can try all you want to get rid of Israel, as many people around the world would like to do, but the more Israel is attacked, the more she is preserved. She even gets a holiday out of the whole thing: Purim in the days of Esther, Hanukkah in the intertestamental period—all of these were added to the calendar related to how God supernaturally intervened for the Jewish people.

The prophet Jeremiah, God through the prophet Jeremiah in chapter 31, explains that as long as there's sun, moon, and stars, Israel will always be a nation before Me. So I guess there's a way to get rid of Israel if you want to; just get rid of the sun, moon, and stars. Pretty easy, right? As long as the fixed order remains, Israel has a covenant with God when she's behaving well and when she's behaving badly. So the existence of the modern state of Israel and the existence of the Jewish people, the miracle on the Mediterranean as we might call it, becomes one of the great proofs that God's word is true.

What you're seeing here is one of these feasts, the reason for which coming into existence is called Passover. The wrath of God passing over the homes that apply the blood of the Passover lamb to the doorposts. If the blood is not there, then your firstborn all throughout Egypt will be killed. "You came after my firstborn, Egypt; now I'm coming after your firstborn. I'll curse those who curse you," Genesis 12:3. As we look at this, we see the death of the firstborn, verses 29 through 32. We have a comprehensive judgment in verse 29, a huge emotional response in verse 30, and then this is it. Pharaoh says, "Leave." No conditions this time. Leave Egypt.

Notice verse 29, the comprehensive judgment that we have been anticipating has now arrived. "Now it came about at midnight"—and that is important for what's coming a little bit later—"it came about at midnight that the Lord struck all of 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 the cattle." This judgment hit, and it hit everybody, the Hebrews, of course, exempted. It came out, again, against even the animals. Nobody was exempted. Pharaoh and his family, the top of the Egyptian hierarchy, they weren't exempted from the judgment. The people in the prisons and the dungeons, commoners, criminals—their families weren't exempted either. This is a description of what we might call comprehensive judgment.

Meaning that when God judges—and He does, and He will—it is comprehensive in nature. There is a judgment coming yet future. We see it at the far right of this chart; it's called the Great White Throne judgment. When it hits, it will hit everybody regardless of class, ethnicity, socioeconomic status. Nobody will be exempted from this other than those that have taken refuge in our Passover Lamb, Jesus Christ. This is how this horrific judgment is described towards the end of the book of Revelation. It says in Revelation 20:12, "I saw the dead, the great and the small." Important people in the world's eyes, unimportant people in the world's eyes, just like it says here, from the throne to the dungeon. "Standing before the throne, the books were opened, and another book was opened, which was the book of life, and the dead were judged from all of the things which were written in the books according to their deeds." This is a judgment that's for the small and the great. There are different judgments in the Bible: sheep and goat judgment, judgment of the Jews, the judgment of rewards for the believers. But I'm talking here about the Great White Throne judgment, which is in Revelation 20:11-15.

I'm not sure if we as members of the church will be there to see this judgment. Frankly, I don't want to see it because it's horrific. But when it happens, it happens to everyone regardless of who they are, their importance or lack thereof in the world. Reminds me very much, since we were just emerging from memorializing the horror of 9/11, a lot of videos and things about the movies—there have been a bunch of them made—about the Titanic that went down. It's so interesting in these movies how these people who are wealthy are portrayed as if they thought that somehow the Titanic sinking wouldn't affect them. I mean, it's just going to affect the low people, right? It's going to affect people that are lower on the socioeconomic scale. Some of these movies depict the wealthy trying to buy their way out of the problem, giving bribes to the crew and trying to get the best seats on the very few lifeboats that were available. You know the horrors of all of that and not really understanding that their money doesn't mean anything anymore. At this point, it's worthless. The ship is sinking, and we're going to die. When you're in that predicament, trying to bribe someone doesn't really help much. You reach a point where the world's resources lose their power.

That's what this judgment is like described in the book of Egypt. Wealth, power, status—it doesn't matter anymore. The only thing that matters is the judgment of God has come, and who can stand in the judgment? Psalm 1, verses 4 through 6, says, "The wicked are not so, but they are like chaff which the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish." Yeah, but I'm a rich wicked person. Doesn't matter. I have status as a wicked person. Doesn't matter. Lord, haven't you looked at my assets and my holdings? Doesn't matter. Lord, I'm talented. Doesn't matter anymore. It's judgment day, and who can stand?

When we understand the power of this judgment, we understand the need for the Passover Lamb, which is our only hope, our only refuge in the midst of coming judgment. Now, what is being depicted here in figure of speech language is what's called a merism. The Bible was written to be interpreted literally; we call that plain literal language. But there is an awful lot of figurative language in the Bible, just like in ordinary communication. There are plain statements and literal statements and figurative statements, and sometimes figures of speech are used. My feet last night were cold, and I said, "I've got cold feet." Well, what does that mean? I was saying something literal, although it would be, I guess, possible to interpret it figuratively. But we need to be understanding that the Bible, when it wants to say something literal, we interpret it literally. When it wants to say something figurative, we interpret it figuratively. A great book on this is a classic; it's still a classic over 100 years after it was written. It's by E.W. Bullinger; it's called *Figures of Speech Used in the Bible*. It will tell you every figure of speech known to man, even figures of speech you never heard of.

Right what's happening here is a figure of speech. It's what's called a merism where you're describing the outer edges of something, kind of like a sandwich with two pieces of bread on the outside, but it covers everything in between. Dr. Roy Zuck says a merism is a form of a synecdoche. Now, that's another figure of speech where it's the part for the whole. So we say, "Today the White House did such and such," and we think, "Oh, the White House, that's a synecdoche for the whole executive branch of government," right? It wasn't just the White House acting; it was the entire executive branch, but the White House is used as a synecdoche for the whole of government. So we use synecdoches all of the time.

But this is what's called a merism. A merism is a form of synecdoche in which the totality or whole is substituted by two contrasting or opposite parts. When the Psalmist wrote, "You know when I sit down and when I rise," Psalm 139:2, he was not limiting the Lord's knowledge to times when he sat down and when he got up. Instead, he was saying the Lord knew all his actions. He could say, "I knew all your actions," or he could use a merism. "My eyes are on you when you get up; my eyes are on you when you lay down," and that would automatically encompass everything in between. So this is not saying that just the throne and the dungeons were affected; it's giving the outer edges and saying the whole nation was affected by this, from the greatest to the least and everything in between because this is judgment day. This is what judgment means. When the floodwaters hit in the days of Noah, it affected everybody other than those who did what God said and took refuge in the ark. But on that day, popularity, influence, health, beauty—it doesn't matter anymore. It's judgment day, and the great day of His wrath has come.

These are things that happened in the past, but they're a prototype of what is coming. This is what judgment day means in scripture. So when you watch the History Channel or A&E or *Mysteries of the Bible* and they have someone coming on there from "Harvard," as I like to say, they'll give you kind of a naturalistic explanation of these plagues and try to devalue how they're supernatural. "Well, the Nile turning to blood—I mean, we know that, you know, mud and so forth can act up certain times of the year and change the color of the Nile. And, you know, the frogs don't like it when that happens, and so they jump out." They kind of explain all of this stuff as God really didn't do these things; these are kind of natural phenomena. You can't do that with frankly any of these judgments, but you certainly can't do it here because God brought targeted judgment.

A virus is not that smart, right? I mean, we've been told that COVID was very smart: shut the churches down and keep the liquor stores or whatever wide open. Smart virus, right? Well, the truth of the matter is this is a targeted judgment. This came only upon the firstborn. So you can't interpret this without seeing the hand of God here. So Dr. Ed Hindson says, "Those holding to the 'miraculous intensification of natural events'—this is what they tell you on the History Channel—'theory of the plagues cannot in any fashion explain the origin of a virus intelligent enough to select only firstborn males. The hand of the Lord is the only satisfactory explanation for this disaster.' In fact, God said it was coming in Exodus chapter 4 and verse 23." God predicted this. God said, "This is what I'm going to do," and then He did it.

Listening to these scholars talk, it's to me it's somewhat laughable that they could come up with this kind of explanation of naturalism, which clearly is the hand of God. For example, Moses knew about the plagues beforehand. That's miraculous. These plagues are instantaneous in appearance, and then they terminate at a certain point. They're described as signs and wonders. God takes the heat, so to speak, on Pharaoh and keeps turning it up gradually until he capitulates, which he does here, as we'll see. They're timed for a particular point in time. They accomplish a moral purpose. God brings the judgment until He gets the response that He's looking for from Pharaoh, which He gets here.

You have the response they evoked from the Egyptian sorcerers. The Egyptian sorcerers themselves, this is the Jeane Dixons and everyone else of Egypt, said, "This is obviously the hand of God. We as magicians can't reproduce these things." Then what's interesting is these plagues kept hitting, and somehow the Jewish people were exempted in Goshen. Again, a targeted judgment. The Nile into blood—it didn't just affect the rivers and the streams and the pools and the reservoirs, but it affected the vessels that were holding the water of the Nile. So it would be like all of a sudden something happens to our water supply, but suddenly the water in my bottle is affected as well. Now, that can't be naturalistic because that was independent, the water in the bottle. That's the kind of thing that was happening all over Egypt.

So this is judgment day. God said it would come all the way back in Exodus 4:22 and 23. He made this prediction: "Then you shall say to Pharaoh, 'Thus says the Lord: Israel is My firstborn. So I said to you, let My son go that he may serve Me. But you have refused to let him go. Behold, I will kill your son, your firstborn.'" So the prediction is given, and now it arrives.

Now, there's a very interesting point here in the field of archaeology, Egyptology, what little we know about the chronology of the various Egyptian leaders. The Pharaoh of the oppression, it's generally acknowledged, was a guy named Thutmose III. The Pharaoh of the Exodus, if we take a 1446 B.C. date for Exodus—which I've explained why we take that; it's a literal understanding of the numbers—the Pharaoh of the Exodus was a guy named Amenhotep II, the guy we're reading about here. But he was replaced post-Exodus by a guy named Thutmose IV. Did you know that Thutmose IV was not the firstborn son of Amenhotep II? Well, what happened to the firstborn son? Got killed.

Charles Ryrie has a little note in his study Bible on Exodus 12:29: "The firstborn of Pharaoh: We know that Thutmose IV succeeded Amenhotep II, the Pharaoh of the Exodus, but Thutmose IV was not his firstborn son." In other words, Thutmose IV was not the firstborn son of Amenhotep II. Well, that's a little weird. Wouldn't the firstborn son replace Amenhotep II? Not if God killed him. So it is interesting that when you study archaeology and you study things outside of the Bible, how archaeology can be interpreted in a way that corroborates the biblical text and doesn't violate it.

This is very important to understand because what people are taught today is the Bible—I mean, you don't really believe the Bible, do you? I mean, that's fairy tales. I mean, you might as well read *VeggieTales* and *Jack and the Beanstalk*. Even preachers will say, "Let's turn to the Exodus story." This is not a story; this is history. If I say that, it's a slip-up. I don't want to ever call this a story; this is history. In fact, this is the most historically accurate book that you could ever give your mind to. If you understand the things outside of the Bible correctly, it never contradicts the biblical record; in fact, it corroborates the biblical record. The Bible explains archaeology really, really well if you just give it a chance, rather than rushing into what I call the amoeba of unbelief. "I mean, this can't be true, so let's come up with a finding in archaeology that contradicts the Bible." No, let's go the other way around. Let's believe it's true and let's see if the archaeological record validates the Bible, which in my view, in this case, it clearly does.

So you move from there down to verse 30 after the firstborn are killed all over Egypt, other than the Jewish homes. You would get what you would expect when a judgment like this hits: you get this huge emotional reaction. I mean, could you imagine if you wake up one day and all of the firstborn in every home all over Sugar Land, Texas, are dead? You could imagine the emotional anguish and the emotional pain. So that kind of thing is happening in Egypt, and now you have this emotional expression. It's right there in verse 30: "Pharaoh arose in the night"—keeps mentioning the night here—"Pharaoh arose in the night, he and all his servants and all the Egyptians, and there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was no home where there was not someone dead."

So you get this emotional reaction. Well, that's how the tribulation period yet coming is described. We have the first six seal judgments that are coming upon the earth. I'm not planning on being here for those seal judgments because God has promised the church that we are exempted from His wrath. So the rapture will take place before these judgments manifest. But the unsuspecting world, they have no idea what's coming.

And so here come the seal judgments that Jesus is causing by opening a seven-sealed scroll, which is the title deed to the earth. Every time He peels back a seal on the scroll, the scroll gets looser until it's obvious that it's going to be pulled out completely. The seventh seal will trigger the trumpet judgments; the seventh trumpet will trigger the bowl judgments. These judgments sound an awful lot like the Exodus judgments in the book of Revelation because here God in the book of Revelation is not just taking a nation out of Egyptian bondage; He's taking the whole world out of the satanic bondage that it's been in since Eden and the fall of man in Eden. This is why heaven rejoices when Jesus starts to peel these seals on this seven-sealed scroll. It opens, meaning the victory is guaranteed. This world is going to be redeemed one day. I mean, do you believe that? If you don't believe that, what are you left with? The nasty now and now. Your belief is what's happening now will always be.

Do you realize that that's what we teach in the public schools around the clock through evolutionary doctrine: that the survival of the fittest that supposedly brought us progress is going to continue on forever? We have all of these youth that are taking drugs and abusing substances and abusing their bodies, and we say, "Well, what's wrong with these young people?" Well, what's wrong with them is what we're teaching them; we're not giving them any hope for the future. You can't give someone hope by telling them that what is happening now has always been and will always be. Yet that's the basic teaching of evolution, which is the only view you're allowed to teach in the public schools today. We say, "My goodness, these kids are acting like animals." Well, what a shock. You teach them that they're animals, evolved animals; they're going to act like animals. If you give them absolutely no hope for the future by telling them that what is happening now has always been and will always be, you're going to have despondent youth. Ideas have consequences.

But the biblical record is so much different. As Hal Lindsey said in one of his books, the title of it is *There's a New World Coming*. I can't wait. In fact, we're going to pray for it. Did you know that? When Jesus taught us to pray, He taught us to pray "Thy kingdom come," meaning there's something far better coming in the future that Jesus set the stage for 2,000 years ago than what we have now. Well, if that's true, I can handle a little nasty now and now. I can go through some setbacks and some difficulties because what I'm experiencing is not forever because there's a better world coming.

But here comes this judgment as God is bringing it in the book of Revelation. Jesus is opening this seven-sealed scroll, the Antichrist comes forward, global war breaks out, famine breaks out, a quarter of the world's population dies. The believers on the earth at the time, many of which are martyred, and there's massive cosmic disturbances. By the time you get to the end of the chapter, the pagans figure out what's happening, and they say this: they're starting to cry out. They say this, Revelation 6:16 and 17, they said to the mountains and the rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the sight of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb." Wow, there's something that's not going to show up on your Christmas cards: the wrath of the Lamb. "For the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?" It's this cry, it's this anguish, just like you're seeing here in Egypt.

Interesting thing about it is God said this cry is coming. Back to Exodus 4, verses 22 and 23, God predicted the judgment was on the way. Over in Exodus chapter 11, verse 6, He says when the judgment hits, there will be a cry in Egypt like you've never heard before. That verse says, "Moreover, there shall be a great cry in the land of Egypt, such as there has not been before and as such shall never be again." When this judgment hits, people are going to cry and wail so deeply that Egypt has never seen anything like this and will never see anything like this again. It's interesting how the Bible predicts things in advance. That's why I love this book, *Every Prophecy of the Bible* by John Walvoord. It will show you every prophecy of the Bible like this, short-term and long-term, which has been fulfilled.

God, who is omniscient, knows the end from the beginning and the beginning from the end. In fact, did you know that for God tomorrow is already here? Because He doesn't have to wait for the calendar to change like we do, living in a finite world. He knows everything, and then He's expressed Himself in a book that predicts the future. Jesus used this as proof that He was the Messiah. He said in John 13:19 to the disciples there in the upper room just prior to the birth of the church on the day of Pentecost: "From now on I am telling you before it comes to pass, so that when it does occur, you may believe that I am He." Now, you know what "I am" is; that's "Ego Eimi," that's a divine title, goes back to Exodus 3:14. Then if that were not enough, He says the exact same thing a chapter later, chapter 14, verse 29: "Now I have told you before it happens, so that when it happens, you may believe." The greatest proof we have that the Bible is God's word is it predicts things before they happen, short-term and long-term. That's what God has done all the way through the Exodus account; He's predicted the future. There is wailing in Egypt like we've never seen before.

This is what pagans do at the death of a loved one: they mourn as those who have no hope. They mourn and they weep and they wail as if they're never going to see that person ever again. If you have a pagan view of death, of course you would weep and wail and mourn. But how different it is when a brother or sister in Christ dies. When a brother or sister in Christ dies, a family member in Christ dies—my father died in 2024—yes, there was grieving. But he was a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, and at his death and reflecting on his death, I don't look at it as you're gone forever. It's not a goodbye; it's an "I will see you later." That changes the whole perspective on death.

This is why Paul is correcting the Thessalonians, 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, verse 13: "But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep"—now that's another figure of speech, that's a euphemism, a polite way of saying something for death. Look at this, end of verse 13, 1 Thessalonians 4: "So that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope," like Egypt. When a loved one in Christ dies, should you not grieve? Well, of course you should grieve. The Bible never says don't grieve, but don't do it like the pagans. I mean, don't do it in the attitude or in the spirit that I'm just never going to see the person ever again. That's not what the Bible says we should do if a loved one in Christ dies. Do we grieve? Of course we grieve, but not like the rest, not like Egypt, not like paganism. This is why Paul concludes his thoughts here with, "Comfort one another with these words." And you know what these verses are? These are our best verses for rapture teaching. Yet the whole rapture is sort of codified as a comfort to the Thessalonians about their deceased loved ones in Christ. You're going to see them again at the point of the rapture. So it's not a farewell, it's not a goodbye, it's an "I'll see you later." We have a different attitude about mourning and grieving in comparison to the unsaved world.

Then you drop down to verses 31 and 32 where Pharaoh, who's been very stubborn to say the least, recalcitrant, reluctant, whatever word you want to use, unwilling to play ball—this is it. "Leave," is what he says. No conditions attached whatsoever. In fact, it's a command. There's a command to the people, verse 31, and then he makes a statement about the flock, their flocks, verse 32, their animals. Look if you will at verse 31. It says, "Then he"—that's Pharaoh—"called for Moses and Aaron at night." Keeps mentioning the night here. "Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron at night: 'Rise up, get out from among my people, both you and the sons of Israel, and go worship the Lord as you have said.'"

Charles Ryrie writes here, "Though Pharaoh manufactured rationalizations for the other plagues, he could not reason away the trauma of the death of his own son. He called for Moses and Aaron that night and gave them permission this time without insisting on any concessions." Remember what he did before with the other nine plagues? "You can leave, but keep your children here. You can leave, but you're supposed to be back in three days. You can leave, but keep your animals or some of your animals here." I mean, he's always playing this game with the prior nine plagues, and this time there's no concessions, there's no conditions. His will is broken, and he just says, "Leave." You see, that's a typology of what God has in plan, has planned for Satan. Satan's grip, which he holds to tightly on planet Earth, will reach a point where Satan just relinquishes. I mean, the judgment is just too much. This is what of course has happened with Pharaoh.

Now, it's kind of interesting that when Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron, he did it at night. Now, maybe that's because this judgment hit at midnight, verse 29. Night is mentioned again, verse 30. But I'm thinking of another possibility, and it's not something to be dogmatic on; I wouldn't start a new church over this per se. But maybe he summoned them at night because it was embarrassing for him. He was losing face. It reminds me of Nicodemus, remember talking to Jesus? I call it the "Nick at Night" discourse. It's the religious leader of Israel trying to figure out who is Jesus Christ? I mean, He's doing miracles; He's saying things that make Him look like the Messiah. Who is this guy? And so Nicodemus had an open mind on the whole thing, but he didn't want the others to see that.

Nicodemus is real interesting in John's gospel because it looks like he kind of comes around as you look at the different accounts. He had an open mind and he wanted to investigate the things of Christ, and of course it would have jeopardized his position there in first-century Israel, so he brought him in at night. John 3, verse 1: "Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews." Verse 2: "This man came to Jesus by night"—I guess he went to where Jesus was—"and said to Him, 'Rabbi, we know'"—he doesn't even call Him God here, calls Him Rabbi—"'you have come from God as a teacher, for no one can do these things that you do unless God is with him. So give it to me straight, Jesus, but let's have our little conversation at night because I don't want anybody else to know that I'm talking to you.'" I think that's kind of what Pharaoh is doing.

And in your life, folks, you're going to have these opportunities. There are going to be people in your family, there are going to be people in your workplace, and they're going to say to you, "You know, when trials hit, you don't act like everybody else. Step into my office or let's go talk over here in the hall. What's the deal with you?" My wife, we were talking about 9/11 and everybody asks, "Where were you when 9/11 hit?" We all remember where we were. I remember where I was; she remembers where she was. She was working as a nurse in a clinic, a pain clinic I think it was, and when the second tower got hit, everybody in the office was panicked. She told me this, not to boast or brag; she just said this is what happened: she just stayed there and kept doing her job, kept getting the things out that people needed. To the point where it agitated the people in the office. Like, "What's wrong with Ann? I mean, doesn't she understand what's going on?" And she says, "I do know what's going on; it's just 'to live is Christ, to die is gain.' I mean, I know Jesus Christ. I don't have to panic about every little thing"—well, this wasn't a little thing, of course, this was a big thing—"the way the world does." And how that led to conversations and opportunities to share Christ, sometimes in private. That's the kind of opportunity that you have as a Christian, and there are people out there in your life that are far more open to the things of God—maybe they're not believers yet, but they're far more open to the things of God than you probably even realize. They're wanting what makes you tick, what makes you different, why do you think this way, why do you act this way? And that's your opportunity to talk about Jesus, even though it would be publicly embarrassing for them if the world knew that the two of you were sort of hanging out.

So this is what is happening. Pharaoh says that's enough, and God's people are freed. You know what? That's the theme of the Bible: it's freedom. God takes us out of bondage. The greatest scam—and it is a scam—that the devil has running, and countless people are deceived by it, is they think if they get too close to Jesus, He's going to make them miserable. He's going to subjugate them, He's going to take this—He's a big meany, that Jesus. He's a cosmic killjoy. He's going to take this away and He's going to take that away. And He does take things away. But coming from personal experience, anything God has ever taken away from me, anything, He's always replaced it with something better. Always.

You know, the Ten Commandments are not 10 restrictions when you think about it; they're protections. "Don't commit adultery." Well, that's not just a don't; that's a protection. That's a guardrail. That's protecting the sanctity of marriage. "Don't murder." That's not a restriction; that's a protection. That's protecting the sanctity of life. "Don't steal," "Don't covet"—that's not just a restriction, that's a protection: the sanctity of private property. We can go right on down the list. "Honor your mother and father"—that's not just something to stay away from; that's a protection of the family structure. That is how God is; He sets us free, which is the theme of the Bible.

Jesus, in John 8:32, says, "You will know the truth and the truth will make you miserable." No, doesn't say that. "Makes you free." John 8, verse 36: "So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed." Galatians 5:1: "It is for freedom that Christ set us free. Therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery." 2 Corinthians 3:17: "Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." John 10:10: "The thief comes to steal, kill and destroy, but I have come that they may have life and have it abundantly."

We think, "Boy, Jesus is really going to mess things up." Are you kidding me? Jesus is in the business of emancipating people and giving them the reason for which He brought them into existence: to glorify Him and live for Him. And there's no more fulfilling place to be. The youth are taught, "Well, you know, I don't want to get too close to the church world; I'm going to go sow a few wild oats and I'll get serious about God later," not understanding that they're putting themselves in bondage when they do that. The liberating thing to do, the freeing thing to do, is to stay with Jesus the whole way. That's why the book of Ecclesiastes says, "Remember your Creator in the days of your youth." I mean, you don't want to go through your life with the bondage of sin attached to your life; you want to go through your life in freedom and in liberty. Yet somehow we think that if we go back into sin and we have excursions back into sin, that that's freedom, when it's the opposite: we're putting ourselves back into bondage.

So these people, praise the Lord, were set free. But they were set free for a reason. Did you catch that? They were set free to worship. Even Pharaoh recognizes this: "Then he called Moses and Aaron at night and said, 'Rise up, get out from among my people, both you and the sons of Israel; go and worship the Lord as you have said.'" By the way, do you know even the law of God is freedom? Deuteronomy 10, verse 13: "To keep the commandments of God and the statutes of the Lord, which I am commanding you today for your own good." "I don't like restrictions, Lord. I want to live the way I want." I don't like these stop signs out here and stoplights; they encumber me. Well, go ahead and live as if they didn't exist and see where that gets you. We know how that story's going to end. These aren't restrictions; this is emancipation.

By the way, Leviticus 25:10—do you know this is inscribed on our Liberty Bell here in the United States? Leviticus 25:10, it says, "You shall consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty through all of the land to its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, and each of you shall return to his possession, and each one of you shall return to his family." Our forebears achieved liberty from tyranny, and they put up on the Liberty Bell itself a statement from the law of God, which everybody thinks is a negative. It's not a negative; it's positive. The whole point of the law of God is to emancipate us, to set us free.

So why are they set free? They're set free to worship. "Get out of here, get out of dodge, go worship." And this is where we start to learn that the reason I have been set free by Jesus is He has a purpose for my life. He didn't set me free just to sit soak and sour; He wants me to do something with my freedom. He wants to use my life in a strategic way so that it blesses other people eternally. That's why He set you free. That's why He set me free. He set me free to worship Him. "Well, I'm a Christian now, I'm set free, I can just go live however I want." Well, I guess you can, but you're living way beneath your privileges if you do that. John 4, verses 23 and 24, Jesus says, "An hour is coming and now is, when true worshippers will worship the Lord in spirit and truth, for such people the Father seeks to be His worshippers." You know God is looking for worshippers? "God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth." I have been set free to worship. That's what Pharaoh is acknowledging: "Leave Egypt, go and worship the Lord the way you're supposed to."

The Magna Carta of Christian salvation freedom is the book of Romans. It's a tremendous book. And after describing all of that, you get to the end of the book of Romans, you get to Romans 12, and you figure out why God set us free in terms of salvation. Romans 12 and verse 1 says, "Therefore, I urge you, brethren"—in other words, the Christians that have been benefited by all these salvation concepts as articulated in Romans—"therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God"—what mercies would those be? Romans 1 through 11—"I beseech you by the mercies of God, now here's what we do: to present your bodies as a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of"—anybody know the last word?—"worship." That's why I've been set free; I'm to be a worshipper. Well, how do you worship the Lord? Is it a liver quiver or your favorite tune? Worship is you take your body and you deposit it before the Lord, and you say, "In light of what You've given me, do what You want in this body." You start doing that—boy, you're worshipping, because that's why God set you free to begin with. This is what He's looking for. You don't say to yourself, "Well, I've been set free, I think I'll go resubjugate myself to slavery. I'm going to go back into sin." What kind of insanity is that? I mean, no logical person would think that way.

And Pharaoh says as you go, take the animals. You see that in verse 32: "Take both your flocks and your herds, as you have said." They're going to Sinai. At Sinai, they're going to receive instructions about the tabernacle. Part of the instructions about the tabernacle will be the Ark of the Covenant, and it will involve animal sacrifice. They have to have the animals to sacrifice. This is why Pharaoh earlier saying, "You can go, but keep the animals here"—that's not going to work. Because the way a holy God forgives sin is He punishes the innocent scapegoat in the place of the wicked. If that doesn't happen, you can't have a relationship with God.

Now, we know who all of this points to; it's a shadow, it's a prefigurement of Jesus Christ. This is why John the Baptist, seeing Jesus coming, said, "Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the whole world." The whole situation got resolved with the death of Jesus, but the animal sacrifices, really beginning in Genesis 3:21 when God took garments of skin and clothed Adam and Eve—I mean, where do the garments of skin come from? Did they just drop out of the sky? No, an innocent animal was killed on the spot to two people, Adam and Eve, that were not carnivorous yet. They were herbivorous. They didn't know what death was. And God right then and there kills an animal, and that certainly sent the shockwaves through Adam and Eve because God was explaining the magnitude of their sin, and He was explaining the magnitude of the solution: someone has to die for this to get fixed. An innocent animal that did nothing wrong died right then and there to people that had no concept of death.

Genesis 3:21 says, "The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them." You're not going to clothe yourself; they tried that with their loin coverings—that didn't get them very far. "I'll cover you through the skin provided by an innocent substitute." Hebrews 9, verse 22, says, "Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness." How does a holy God forgive sin and still maintain His holiness? Sin's got to be punished. So He punishes an innocent scapegoat in the place of the guilty. It's just the shock of the New Testament is who the scapegoat is: it's Jesus. The eternally existent second member of the Trinity who stepped out of eternity into time to bear this consequence for us. That's why the animals have to go. If you don't have the animals out, you don't have a situation in place that God can forgive sin, and you don't have a prefigurement of Jesus.

Now, Pharaoh wouldn't let the animals go originally. Remember Exodus 10:24? "Then Pharaoh called to Moses and said, 'Go serve the Lord; only let your flocks and your herds be detained.'" That's not going to work, Pharaoh. And God has turned up the temperature where now Pharaoh is willing to let them all go: children, animals. Leave and go worship the Lord the way you're supposed to.

And then the last little clause here, verse 32, and with this we're finished. Did you catch what Pharaoh said on the way out? Verse 32: "Take both your flocks and your herds as you have said, and go, and bless me also." What? I mean, I thought you were the guy fighting all of this all the time. In fact, you probably know this, and we've dealt with this a lot in this series, but every plague that God brought in Egypt, all 10 of these, is an attack on an Egyptian god, little g. I was reading a commentary where the gentleman said there were probably about 84 deities in Egypt that they worshipped. They worshipped the Nile; God says, "I'll take care of that, I'll turn it to blood red." They worshipped frogs and gnats and flies, and God says, "You like those? I'll multiply them all over Egypt." On the right there you can see the different names of the different deities being mocked. You worship cattle? I'll put disease on them. You worship health and beauty? Here come the boils and the hail and the locusts. They worshipped the sun; did you know that? Not the S-O-N Son, the S-U-N sun. God says, "I'll make it pitch black." They even worshipped the firstborn, and God killed the firstborn all over Egypt. And the whole way Pharaoh is fighting this, fighting this, fighting this, holding onto these false deities. And so finally Pharaoh said, "I quit. I give. I'll cry uncle; whatever it is. Your God, Moses and Aaron, is the true God, and when you leave"—because I'm giving you permission to leave—to put it in modern-day vernacular, "can you put in a good word for me for the man upstairs?" Anybody ever ask you that? "Hey, put in a good word for me in the man upstairs." What they're saying is there's something to your relationship with God that I see that's true. And that's what Pharaoh is doing: he's reached the breaking point and he's acquiescing. That's why that statement is such a big deal.

And then for next time, if you can read verses 33 through 42, where you actually have a description of the Exodus. It's a foolish thing to fight against God. Paul the apostle, when he was Saul, going by the name Saul, spent so much time fighting against God where God said to Saul, "Saul, Saul, why do you kick against the goads? Why are you fighting something that you can't win?" Could it be that you're here fighting against God? You've never come to Christ for salvation; maybe there's some area of your life that you have not submitted nor surrendered to God, and you just keep fighting. The best advice I can give you from a professional that fights against God way too much is you're not going to win. Just give in. Let the Lord do what He wants to do. Let Him have His way. That clearly is the path of least resistance. And it starts with a relationship with God where you accept the fact that you're not going to save yourself. Jesus will save you. He did everything necessary through His death, burial, resurrection, and ascension to make the pathway of salvation available to you. Just rest in that. Trust in what He said when He said, "It is finished." Stop arguing, stop fighting, stop this rationalizing; just trust in what He did. And you be shocked about how the peace of God which surpasses all understanding, as Paul tells us, will guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus as we submit by way of faith to the authority of God. May many people within the sound of my voice be—may they trust in the Savior so as to be saved. The best they know how to do it. If you need more explanation on it, I'm available after the service. May people within the sound of my voice that are fighting so hard against God on different issues, may they just submit and surrender to His authority. May the Lord bring us to the point that He brought Pharaoh to, where he abandoned this pantheon and acknowledged the supremacy and the authority of the one God, Yahweh and His Godson, Jesus Christ.

Let's pray. Father, we're grateful for Your word, grateful for Your truth, grateful not for this story but for this account of what happened. May the lessons that we learn here, may we walk these out this week. We'll be careful to give You all the praise and the glory. We ask these things in Jesus' name. God's people said, amen.