Sugar Land Bible Church

Dr. Andy Woods: There we go. As our children are being dismissed to their junior church program, let's take our Bibles this morning and open them to the book of Exodus, chapter 11 and verse 8. The title of our message this morning is Righteous Anger.

Continuing our verse-by-verse teaching through the book of Exodus, God in the book of Exodus is redeeming a nation that had been in bondage for 400 years through a Pharaoh that knew not Joseph and his successors. God, right on time, says it's time to bring this nation out of bondage.

He does that through a human instrument that he has raised up, this man Moses. Through Moses and Aaron come these ten plagues upon Egypt. We've finished nine of the ten, and we're now moving into the tenth plague. Chapter 11 is sort of a precursor to that.

What has happened at the end of chapter 10 is there's this conversation going on between Moses and Pharaoh. The conversation gets interrupted in verses 1 through 3 to give some background information. Then the conversation is resumed beginning at verse 4, going all the way through the end at verse 8, as Pharaoh is speaking to Moses. Moses is telling Pharaoh what he can expect in this tenth plague that's coming.

God will be directly involved in it, according to verse 4. It will be comprehensive and will affect everybody all over the land of Egypt. When it happens, it will be emotional grief such as the Egyptians have never experienced before. But God's people and those who have the blood of the Passover lamb on the doorpost will be exempted from this plague because this plague will result in the death of the firstborn throughout the land of Egypt.

Once this hits, there is going to be a tremendous change of attitude as the Egyptians are looking at the Israelis. We pick it up there, verse 8, with this reaction that's coming from Pharaoh's servants. What are they going to do to Moses and what are they going to say? There is a huge change in attitude.

It says in verse 8, "All these your servants," Moses speaking to Pharaoh, "will come down to me and bow yourselves to me," which is an amazing statement because it's the Egyptians that have been enslaving the Hebrews all of this time. Now the work of God is going to be such that no longer will we be slaves, but Pharaoh's servants will actually come and bow themselves down before the Hebrew leadership, in this case Moses.

It becomes an interesting thing that God is able to do in the lives of people, to change their hearts. The very people that sometimes come against us, God can work in such a way that no longer are they coming against us, but they're actually trying to help us. They're actually trying to promote us.

This is something that was spoken to the church at Philadelphia in Revelation chapter 3, verse 9. It says there, "Behold, I will cause those of the synagogue of Satan who say they are Jews and are not, but lie—I will make them come down and bow down to your feet and make them know that I have loved you."

Here is little Philadelphia being persecuted by a group of people called the synagogue of Satan. I would understand that as a smaller group of unbelieving Jews, the kind of Jews that we read about in the book of Acts that were perpetually opposing the work of the church. They were causing this church at Philadelphia so many problems. God says, "I'm going to work in such a way that they're going to actually bow down to you one day." I don't know if that's this side of the Second Coming or the other side, but that day is coming.

The same kind of thing happened to Joseph. Remember Joseph being betrayed and rejected by his brothers? Well, there's a prophecy given to Joseph that the brothers that rejected him, betrayed him, sold him as a slave into Egypt, and left him for dead, those very brothers would bow down to him.

This is what was said of Joseph in Genesis 37, verse 9. It says, "Now he still had another dream and related it to his brothers and said, 'Lo, I have still had another dream; and behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars'—that's Joseph's family—'were bowing down to me.'" He related it to his father and to his brothers, and his father rebuked him and said, "What is this dream that you have had? Shall I and your mother and your brothers come to bow ourselves down to the ground to you?" Joseph, as he shared this vision at the age of 17, is why his brothers became so jealous of him. They betrayed him because of this dream.

Yet the prophecy was still on the books that they would bow down to Joseph one day. In fact, a few verses earlier in Genesis 37, verses 6 and 7, it says, "He said to them, 'Please listen to this dream which I have had; for behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and lo, my sheaf rose up and also stood erect; and behold, your sheaves gathered around and bowed down to my sheaf.'"

What if your little brother told you that? That probably wouldn't make you happy. They were angry at him and they betrayed him. But by the time you hit age 30, about 13 years later, that's exactly what happened. God worked in the heart of these brothers in such a way that their heart was changed, and they moved from being Joseph's opponents to Joseph's advocates.

Genesis 42 and verse 6 describes it. It says, "Now Joseph was the ruler over the land; he was the one who sold to all of the people of the land. And Joseph's brothers came and bowed down to him with their faces to the ground." That's what God said would happen. It's just a matter of time.

Genesis 43, verse 26: "When Joseph came home, they brought into the house to him the present which was in their hand and bowed down to the ground before him." Genesis 43, verse 28: "They said, 'Your servant our father is well, but is still alive,' and they bowed down in homage." Genesis 44, verse 14: "When Judah and his brothers came to Joseph's house, he was still there and they fell down to the ground before him."

If you give history enough time, it will catch up to the predictions of the Bible. God said this would happen at age 17, which looked crazy to Joseph at that age, but 13 years later exactly what God said would happen happened. As a Christian, you're going to face circumstances in your life where people will come against you.

It's interesting to understand that you serve a God who is able to work in that situation so providentially and so comprehensively that the people that come against you could actually end up helping you, assisting you, being your ally, being your friend, being your advocate. This pattern has happened in my own life several times. When people treat you unfairly, it's important to take that situation and to bring it to the Lord because the Lord can change the hearts of people. In fact, that's his specialty.

Moses is saying that's what is going to happen with you Egyptians. You've enslaved us and mistreated us all these years, but as we're leaving on account of this tenth plague that's coming, you're going to come down and bow down to me. As you bow down to me and to themselves before me, you're going to say something.

What they're going to say is also recorded there in verse 8. They're going to say—these are their enslavers—"Go out, you and all the people who follow you." God is going to use their actual language and their words, in the sense of an ally. It is interesting to me that God is in control of the speech of people. God actually is going to hold people responsible for what they say.

Matthew chapter 12, verse 36 describes this and it says, "I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an account for it in the day of judgment." I read that and I say, "Thank you, Lord, I'm not going to be in that judgment," because a lot of careless things have come out of my mouth over the years.

As people speak careless things to God's people, God is actually going to hold them accountable for their speech and can actually work in such a way that their speech could end up cooperating with the people of God rather than going against it. Jude verses 14 and 15 talks about the Second Advent, the Second Coming of Jesus, and it says this: "It was also about these men that Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied, saying, 'Behold, the Lord came with thousands of His holy ones, to execute judgment and to convict all the ungodly of all of their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way...'"

And listen to this: "...and of all of the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him." Jesus is coming back, he's going to deal with the world on account of its sin and sins. What's the first order of business he's going to go after? The abortionists? The pornographers? I'm sure he'll deal with those folks.

But the first order of business, according to these verses, he's going to hold people accountable for all of the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him. He's going to be busy dealing with people because as you just turn on the TV, all you see is derogatory accusations against Christians and against Christianity, putting them down constantly. When someone says something positive about Jesus today, rather than using him as a cuss word, it's a shock because it's all negative talk towards God and the things of God.

Jude says, "Don't worry about that, people of God, God's going to hold every word that people speak, they're going to be held to an account for it on the day of judgment." God is even concerned about the things people say. He can actually redirect people's speech in a positive way, which apparently is going to happen as the Egyptians are going to be letting the Hebrews go.

Then this whole conversation ends with Moses exiting. It's an abrupt exit. Verse 8: "And after that, I will go out." You're going to come to me, you're going to bow down before me, your speech is going to be positive towards me and the Hebrews, and then I'm going to leave. At this point, the fate of Egypt is sealed. There's no turning around. This judgment is coming and the exodus event will transpire.

Proverbs 29 and verse 1 says, "A man who hardens his neck after much reproof will suddenly"—I like that expression there, that adverb suddenly—"will suddenly be broken beyond remedy." They think they're getting away with this and getting away with that, and then suddenly something happens.

That's the kind of scenario that Moses is explaining here to Pharaoh. You've had the opportunity to cooperate with God. He's given you multiple opportunities. You've rejected, rejected, rejected, rejected, and now suddenly you're going to be broken without remedy. It's going to come fast, it's going to hit you fast. Then all of a sudden, Moses terminates the conversation and walks out of Pharaoh's presence. That's at the end of verse 8. Look at this very carefully: "He went out from Pharaoh... in hot anger." Hot under the collar, I guess we could say.

Moses was not just angry over the condition of Pharaoh; it was hot anger. It was extreme anger. That's why I've entitled this message Righteous Anger. The book of James tells us that the anger of man does not bring about the righteous results of God. We are not people of anger. When it comes to personal grievances, we should let the sun go down on our anger.

We should forgive as we have been forgiven, lest we give the devil a foothold when it comes to these personal wrongs that we experience from others. While we are not angry people, there is a place in the life of the Christian for righteous anger, where you become angry over something that is attacking and coming against God and his principles.

It's not a personal thing; it's just a righteous anger. Actually, there's a place in the life of the Christian for that very thing. Ephesians 4, verse 26 says, "Do not let the sun go down on your anger," you know, forgive as you've been forgiven, but the first part of the verse says, "Be angry, and yet do not sin."

That shows me that not all anger is necessarily wrong or sinful. There is a place in the life of the Christian for righteous anger, where you're angry not so much at personal vindication, but you're angry because of how God is being targeted, trashed, and demoralized in the public square. I believe that Jesus Christ himself, the meek and mild Jesus, the one who had no place to lay his head, the one that the children came to and he said to his disciples, "Suffer them not to come unto me"—there wasn't a more patient person on the earth than Jesus Christ. As you study the Gospels, Jesus went into the temple and he saw that they had turned the temple into a mall, a money-changing atmosphere. They had their tables set up and everything.

Jesus—by my count, he does it twice. A lot of people say once; I say twice. He does it at the beginning of his ministry, John 2, and the synoptics record it—Matthew, Mark, and Luke—at the end of his ministry. It's a nice bracket of the ministry of Christ, showing the guilt of first-century national Israel's leadership.

You know the story, how he drove the money changers out with a whip and overturned their tables. You're reading that and you're saying, "Is that the Jesus that I know that is so patient and kind and meek and mild doing that kind of thing twice in his ministry?" The key to it is he says "My father's house." It wasn't about him. It was about his anger over what they were doing to his father's house. "My father's house is to be a place of prayer," and they had turned it into something very trivial. That angered him to the point where he physically drove these people right on out. Jesus growing up working as a carpenter would be a very strong individual, and apparently he was.

The temple was the place where people could come. It was designed this way by God. The Queen of Sheba traveled from Saudi Arabia roughly 1,200 miles—before modern-day travel—to sit at Solomon's feet and learn of his wisdom. That's what the temple was for. It was to portray God.

Visitors from around the known world could come to the temple, visit the temple, and they were supposed to see in the temple a representation of who God was. That's why the Queen of Sheba came and that's why Solomon built the temple under God's instructions. You're supposed to learn about God's love and God's mercy and God's holiness. To come into that kind of environment and see it turned into a place of just trivial, cheap money-making and commerce was something that angered Jesus. He wasn't angry over something that happened to him personally. He was angry righteously.

I wouldn't recommend necessarily that you start going into different places and driving people out with whips; I'm not sure that's God's will for your life. But I'm just trying to demonstrate that there is something in Christianity called righteous anger. Be angry and do not sin.

I think the problem is when we turn it into something personal, it becomes about us rather than God. Then you move away from righteous anger. Moses, as we're going to read about later on in the Moses story, hits the rock twice and he was prevented from that point on from entering the Promised Land.

It seems to me that he reacted in sort of a personal, angry way. I have to monitor my righteous anger very carefully because it can move very fast into something personal, like unforgiveness, and I don't want to be that way. But righteous anger, there's actually a place for that in the Christian life. There are certain things that are happening in the world, maybe even in the church, that should anger you.

If it doesn't anger you, then I would suggest that maybe you're not being responsive to the ministry of the Holy Spirit. This is what it says of Paul as he came into Athens. It says in Acts 17, verse 16, "Now while Paul was speaking for them at Athens, his spirit was being provoked within him as he was observing the city full of idols."

Paul came into Athens, he didn't say, "Well, that's doctrinally wrong," which of course would be true, but it was something deeper than that. His emotions were vexed. He was internally bothered by what he saw. That's the ministry of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will do that kind of thing in the life of the child of God.

I don't know how it's possible to drive past a place where abortion is taking place on demand, to drive past a place of pornography or child sex slavery and all of these kinds of things happening in our wicked world and to see that, and to just have a stoic attitude. I don't know how that's possible. I'm kind of jealous in a sense of people that can be like that, because I get agitated by those kinds of things.

I used to think maybe I was in some kind of sin because this was bothering me to the point of emotional agitation. But then I read here about Moses. He's tired of this. He left Pharaoh in not just anger, but hot anger.

What is Moses so upset about? He's upset about the fact that this guy has been given every conceivable opportunity to get right with God and he won't take it. He's gambled with the grace of God, and Moses is angry over that. Righteous anger. Conversation terminated. Then verses 9 and 10 record the aftermath of this conversation.

Four things. Number one: God's prediction. It says in verse 9, "Then the Lord said to Moses, 'Pharaoh will not listen to you, so that my wonders will be multiplied in the land of Egypt.'" Even though Pharaoh is given opportunities to hear the truth, God at the very beginning of the process said it won't matter because God knew what Pharaoh would do with his own free will.

All the way back in Exodus 4, verse 21, before all of these opportunities had been given to Pharaoh, we read this prediction: "The Lord said to Moses, 'When you go back to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders which I have put in your power; but I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go.'"

Pharaoh and what he experienced and received was a bona fide offer, but God says, "I know what he's going to do with it, he's going to turn it down. And Moses, I told you this was going to happen." It's not that God doesn't love Pharaoh; he does. It's not that Pharaoh wasn't given free will, which he was. But the prediction was made at the beginning that he's going to reject it.

Only God can know what his free-will creatures will do with their free will, and in this case, God called it out correctly as God always does. You read these prophecies by Jean Dixon and Nostradamus—they are so vague and broad and they've got so many loopholes in them you could drive a truck through the loophole.

You come to the Bible and you start seeing predictions that are specific and ironclad. I mean, things like where Jesus was going to be born, what city, what tribe he would come from, how he would die, prophecies about the virgin birth.

Prophecies that are so specific, this book must have come from God because only God would put his reputation on the line and predict something so specifically and watch it be fulfilled over and over again. If I was going to set a date for the Second Coming of Christ, I would make it so general that I could die and I wouldn't be held accountable for the prophecy. I wouldn't predict it happening next month. Yet in the Scripture, although there is no date for the Second Coming, there are a lot of prophecies that are made that are time-bound and finite. Dr. John Walvoord's book *Every Prophecy of the Bible* is a good book that deals with all of them.

I have made reference many times to what Jesus said in the Upper Room discourse, just prior to his death. He says in John 13, verse 19, "I am telling you before it comes to pass, so that when it does—not if, when it does occur—you may believe that I am he."

John 14, verse 29: "I have told you before it happens so that when it happens, you may believe that I am he." What Jesus is saying here is, "I'm going to make a bunch of predictions that are going to happen this week. Who's going to betray me, who's going to kill me, all of these details. I'm going to rise from the dead. You're going to watch them happen this week. Once you see all of that, you're going to understand who you're dealing with, that I am the I AM, Ego Eimi," which is a divine title.

I was watching something recently about Christian apologetics and a video decrying how many young people are leaving the church because we're not giving them an apologetic for the faith.

We've got the greatest apologetic that's ever existed. You have in your hand a book that predicts the future. Do you realize that? A lot of the prophecies have been fulfilled, but a lot of them are yet to come. I believe in the ones yet to come because this book has a track record.

"I told you, Moses, ahead of time that he wouldn't accept my offer of grace to him." There is really no sense in getting too angry about it, but Moses is angry because of the grace that has been given to Pharaoh. There are things in the Bible like Jesus going to his hometown, and it says, "He could not"—it's not that he would not, he could not—"do any miracles amongst them" other than to say a prophet is without honor in his hometown.

Why not? Because they didn't believe. It says in Mark's Gospel, "Jesus marveled at their unbelief." He couldn't believe they couldn't or wouldn't believe, and it stirred him up. It bothered him. And yet we know all the way into the Old Testament what the reaction would be.

He would be cut off, Daniel chapter 9, verse 26, and inherit nothing. It is an interesting parallel as Jesus and Moses are bothered by what they see, and yet it's part of the plan. You go down to the second part of verse 9 and now we have an explanation why God is allowing this hardening to occur.

It says in verse 9, "Then the Lord said to Moses, 'Pharaoh will not listen to you,' so that my wonders will be multiplied in the land of Egypt." In other words, I'm going to use this stubbornness to glorify myself. I'm not causing Pharaoh to reject me, but I'm going to use it. I'm going to use it to multiply my miracles all over the land of Egypt because God's purpose in history is to glorify himself. He has the right to do it because he is God. This is what we call the doxological purpose of God.

You're in a church that honors and follows traditional dispensationalism. What does that even mean? Traditional or normative dispensational theology is a system that embodies three essential fundamental concepts called the sine qua non—without which there is not—which is, number one: the consistent use of the plain, normal, or literal grammatical-historical method of interpretation.

This means we take the whole Bible literally when we can, taking into account figures of speech, hyperbole, simile, metaphor, and those kind of things when they're conspicuous in the text. Once you do that, it reveals something. This is not something we impose into the Bible; it's an observation that comes out of the Bible once you become committed to taking God at his word from Genesis to Revelation. It reveals that the church is distinct from Israel. We are not Israel. We're the church. Everybody today is saying the church is the new Israel.

Last name is Boler—I think she was Miss America—on Trump's free speech committee with Dan Patrick and others. She's been kicked off that committee. I can't say I'm disappointed in that. But there she is on the Tucker Carlson Network saying the church is the new Israel. People say this all the time, justifying why we care about these people in the Middle East. We've taken over their blessings.

Yet we believe that the church is not Israel and Israel is not the church. There are actually separate programs for each. Why do we think that way? Because it's the product of observing things once you become committed to a literal interpretation of the whole Bible. Israel and the church are two trains on different railroad tracks. God is coming back at a different time for the church than he is Israel. He is coming back for the church in the rapture and he is coming back for Israel at the end of the seven-year tribulation period.

What then is the overall purpose of God? God's overall purpose is to bring glory to himself. Ephesians 1, verse 6, 12, 14. That's the doxological purpose of God. God works in history to glorify himself. Hey, there's a man born blind. Is that John 9? "Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he be born blind?"

Jesus says, "None of the above. This man was born blind so that the works of God might be manifested in him." I would understand that as a divine healing that's about to take place in John chapter 9. God allowed this to glorify himself through this healing. That's a tough one, but that's how God works. Charles Ryrie says, "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 the different dispensations or ages, the program of salvation being just one of the means by which he glorifies himself. Each successive revelation of God's plan manifest his glory.

Wait a minute, Pastor, I thought the point of the Bible is God came to save us. He did. But when he saves, his primary purpose needs to be subsumed under his overall purpose, which is to glorify himself because when someone gets saved, who gets the glory? God does.

This clarifies so much insanity in our lives because you're going to be as a Christian making decisions constantly. Where should I work, what town should I live in, who should I marry? We're always asking for divine guidance. It's simplified when you simply ask the Lord, "Well, of all of these options, which one glorifies you the most?" Because that's why I'm here. That's why I exist. That's why you redeemed me.

If man becomes the center of what God is doing, then you have no explanation for the angels because the plan of salvation is not even open to the angels. If everything is about us and you make that the centerpiece of God's overall purpose, then what in the world is he doing with the angels where there's not even a plan of salvation available? There must be something bigger out there than just ourselves.

Everything God does is to glorify himself. You've seen *Chariots of Fire*, Eric Liddell, his sister trying to talk him out of this running that he's doing. You know the great line in that movie. He says, "When I run, I feel his pleasure. God made me fast for a reason. When I do this, it glorifies him." That's why he made the decision to continue on with his running even though at that time in his life, he had the opportunity to leave that and be a missionary.

Is there anything wrong with being a missionary? Of course not, but it's not for everybody. He did become one, by the way, and suffered a martyr's death. But at that point in his life, he was going to be a runner because he said that's where God is glorified. They just don't really make movies like that anymore, do they?

The focus of God in every dispensation is to glorify himself. Mike Stallard has a great triangle summarizing this. God's glory at the pinnacle. As you work your way up the left side, it's God's work in creation. Why did he create the world? And the nations? And Israel? And the church? To glorify himself.

What is the church supposed to be doing? Aren't there a bunch of rules and activities that we're all supposed to follow? Yeah, that's part of it, but what's the big purpose? Ephesians 3, verse 21 is the purpose: "To Him be the glory in the church." That simplifies it. "And in Jesus Christ to all the generations forever and ever, Amen."

That's how you decide what you're going to do in a church and what you're not going to do in a church. The Bible doesn't have a lot of rules necessarily for things like that, it's just, "Does this thing, whatever it is, glorify God or not?" That's how you make decisions as a Christian. All kinds of personal decisions.

"I have the opportunity to do this, or indulge that, or waste my time there, or get involved in that kind of conversation." You just ask yourself, "Is this glorifying to the Lord?" It really simplifies life when you think about it. The truth of the matter is, if you were created to glorify God, how could you be happy doing anything else?

When you think about it, it's like a person living outside of the reason why they exist. It's like using a screwdriver for a hammer. You're perpetually using something as a tool that it wasn't designed to do. The world out there, they think their purpose is to make themselves happy, to get rich, to get notoriety, and that's why they're all miserable.

The most miserable people in the world are people that are trying to fulfill their purpose without understanding what their purpose is. Your purpose is to glorify God. He glorifies himself differently through different people. It's not a one-size-fits-all thing. With Eric Liddell, it was running. You have your purpose and I have mine.

We don't try to shoehorn people into all being the same. We're all unique and different. But does it glorify the Lord? Then you work your way down the right-hand side of that, it's the glory of God in redemption. The rapture of the church glorifies him. The restoration of Israel glorifies him. The judgment of the nations glorifies him. Finally, the redemption of creation itself glorifies him. Why is all of these things happening? To glorify God. "So that my wonders will be multiplied in the land of Egypt." And I need a God-hater for this to work, so I've allowed this to happen.

God can take the rejection of somebody against the grace of God and use it for his glory. That's why he called it out in advance: "This is what's going to happen." You look at verse 10 and it's a summary statement of everything that we've read thus far in the book of Exodus. It says, "Moses and Aaron performed all these wonders before Pharaoh."

The Nile has been turned to blood, we've seen the multiplication of frogs, gnats, flies. The gnats came out of the dust. The Nile to blood is kind of inanimate to animate, and then the multiplication of the frogs is animate to animate. Once the gnats came out of the dust, Pharaoh's magicians could not imitate that. They said, "This is the finger of God." Then the flies, the death of the livestock, the boils, the hail, the locusts, the darkness, and the death of the firstborn that's coming.

Every one of these was designed to critique or mock an Egyptian deity of some kind. Don't think God doesn't have a sense of humor; he does. All of these things that people worshipped there in Egypt, God just took them to task. Then it concludes here with a portrait. It is a sad portrait of Pharaoh's hardening.

Verse 10: "Moses and Aaron performed all these wonders before the Pharaoh, yet the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart; he did not let the sons of Israel go out of his land." As we've studied many times, Pharaoh had a free will but he just wouldn't acquiesce to the things of God. In the first five plagues, the text registers Pharaoh as the agent of his own hardening. Not until the sixth plague does God participate in the confirmation of Pharaoh's own volitional choices.

Charles Ryrie says seven times Pharaoh hardened his own heart before God first hardened it, though the prediction that God would do it all preceded it all. The prediction of the hardening heart of Pharaoh is in Exodus 4, verse 21. Then you see Pharaoh hardening his own heart over and over again.

How far are we as a culture into this process where we're given opportunity after opportunity until God finally says, "It's in cement, do what you want." Not until the sixth plague did God harden Pharaoh's heart. Don't think that Pharaoh got a bad deal here. He had every opportunity and yet he kept turning it down. Finally, God says, "You can have what you want." It's frightening.

The book of Romans calls this God turning over people. Romans 1, verse 18 through verse 32 says they suppressed what was obvious of God and God gave them over. It says that three times. May the Lord help us to understand this and help us to understand that today is the day of salvation.

You have this conversation interrupted in verses 1 through 3, conversation continued in verses 4 through 8, and then you have the aftermath of the conversation. God's prediction would be fulfilled, God has a purpose to glorify himself, a summary statement in verse 10, and then Pharaoh's hardening. Oh my word, Pastor, you're letting us out early? Well, it's Mother's Day.

I would encourage you this week if you could to study Exodus 12, because that's where it happens—the death of the firstborn and Passover. One of the things that's interesting in the Bible is you get a short chapter, verse 10, and it's followed by a long chapter every time. You'll see this in the Psalms. Psalm 119 is the longest chapter in the Bible, but the Psalm right before it is little.

That is what you have coming in chapter 12, so we may get out by midnight next week. But let's pray. Father, we're grateful for your word, grateful for your truth, grateful for your love for us, and grateful for the full counsel of God that you've given us.

We're grateful for motherhood and what mothers represent and even how that position is being demeaned constantly. Help our mothers today feel unique and special and loved. I pray, Lord, that if anyone is here who does not know you personally, that today will be the day of salvation.

May they understand the Gospel and what you've done for people all over the world and place their personal trust in you for salvation so that they may not gamble on their eternity as Pharaoh did, but use their free will to trust in the finished work of Jesus Christ. If anyone is here and needs more explanation on this, I'm available after the service to talk. We ask these things in Jesus' name. And God's people said, "Amen."