Sugar Land Bible Church

Dr. Andy Woods: And as the 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 nine and verse one. As we continue our verse-by-verse teaching through the book of Exodus, the title of our message this morning is "The Last Call."

You'll recall that the book of Exodus is about the redemption of a nation, the nation of Israel, that had been in a state of bondage for 400 years at the hands of a Pharaoh initially that knew not Joseph. And God is taking that nation and bringing them out of bondage. He's raised up an instrument that he's going to use, a man named Moses primarily. God has dealt with this man extensively, and by the time you get to about halfway through chapter seven, God's now ready to use Moses.

And so it's through Moses that come upon the land of Egypt ten plagues, four of which we've studied: the Nile to blood, the plague of frogs, the plague of gnats, the plague of flies. Pharaoh each time being given an opportunity to acquiesce to God has chosen not to. And as is typical, the plagues get worse and worse the more Pharaoh hardens his own heart against God.

And so here we are with plague number five, the death of the livestock, disease on cattle. Chapter nine, verses one through seven. Here's an outline we're going to look at today as we look at these verses: God's instructions to Moses and Aaron, verses one through five; the prophetic fulfillment of what God said would happen, verse six; and Pharaoh's reaction.

Pharaoh's reaction is scary because this will be Pharaoh's last opportunity to do what's right. From this point on, Pharaoh is not hardening his own heart against God; God is hardening Pharaoh's heart, giving Pharaoh over to what Pharaoh wanted to do. But first of all, notice God's instructions to Moses and Aaron.

We have first of all God's edict. And you see this in chapter nine, verse one. It says, "Then the Lord said to Moses, 'Go to Pharaoh and speak to him. Thus says the Lord, the God of the Hebrews: Let my people go that they may serve me.'" You'll notice that the Jewish people, the nation of Israel—this very special nation that God has raised up in the book of Genesis, this instrument through which he will bless the world—is being called here the Hebrews.

That's the designation given to them. This is what Potiphar's wife said concerning Joseph all the way back in Genesis 39, verse 17 when she falsely accused him, you remember? It says, "Then she spoke to him," that's her husband, "with these words, 'The Hebrew slave whom you brought to us came in to me to make sport of me.'"

So from that point on, we're getting this nomenclature, this designation: the Hebrews. And so God says, "Here's what you're to tell Pharaoh: to let the Hebrews go." "Thus says the Lord God of the Hebrews: Let my people go." Famous lines. And I so appreciate them because I think they summarize the whole heart and soul of God. God is about liberation. God is about taking people who were in a state of slavery and setting them free.

Jesus talked about this in the New Testament in John 8, verse 32. He says, "You will know the truth and the truth will set you free." Just as the Hebrews were under a terrible tyrant, the human race is under a tyrant. It's called original sin and Satan. We have a tendency to think that if I just go and live life on my own terms, independent of God, then I'm really going to experience freedom, and it's the opposite. The further a person moves away from God, the more enslaved they become.

And God sees us in our need and sent his only son to liberate us, to set us free, just as the Hebrews are going to be set free from political rule. Jesus in John 8, verse 36 says, "If the son makes you free, you will be free indeed." Paul in 2nd Corinthians, chapter three and verse 17 says, "Now the Lord is the spirit, and where the spirit is, there is liberty."

That's how you can always tell when you're around Jesus. He takes the chains that once bound us: chains of bitterness perhaps, chains of resentment, chains of anxiety, chains of guilt, and he sets us free from those things. A lot of people use the name of Jesus to put people into slavery. Religion does that to people. It puts people on a treadmill of works, making people wonder if they've done enough good deeds to get to heaven.

And how different it is when you encounter Jesus who gives a person, at the point of faith alone in Christ alone, immediate assurance of salvation. God is about freedom. In America, we were founded on freedom as well. We have something called the Liberty Bell. That crack there in the Liberty Bell was created when it was rung at the death, if I have my history right, of our third Supreme Court Justice, a man named John Marshall.

That's where that crack came from. But you'll be interested to know that on the Liberty Bell itself is inscribed Leviticus 25 and verse 10, which says, "Proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all its inhabitants." And then it talks about the Year of Jubilee: "You shall consecrate the 50th year and proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, and each of you shall return to his possession, and each of you shall return to his family."

God was so into and interested in liberating people that on the 50th year, called the Year of Jubilee under the law of Moses, people were released from their debts, all financial obligations. Could you imagine that? Household payments gone, credit card payments gone, car payments gone. Because the Bible says the borrower is servant to the lender. And so there was a provision in the Mosaic Law to liberate people from debts that they were in that they couldn't get out of.

And that's in Leviticus 25 and verse 10. And that's what our founding fathers put on the Liberty Bell. I like to bring this up because a lot of people today want you to believe that America was founded on separating Christianity from public life. Get the Ten Commandments out of the schools, get the manger scene off the city hall steps. And yet nothing could be further from the truth.

Our founders inscribed Leviticus 25 and verse 10 on one of our founding pieces of architecture. And it was an appropriate inscription because of its emphasis on liberty, liberty from tyranny and freedom. And so it's no surprise here that God's agenda through Moses is to take Egypt out of bondage, just like he wants to take you out of bondage and he wants to take me out of bondage.

So it says here, "Thus says the Lord, the God of the Hebrews: Let my people go." Now notice this: "that they may serve me." We love Ephesians 2, verses 8 and 9, don't we? But how come we never include verse 10? Ever notice that? Some of the first verses I ever memorized as a new Christian were Ephesians 2, verses 8 and 9. But for some reason, verse 10 was never emphasized.

But you have to understand all these verses together to see the mind of God. It says, "For by grace you have been saved through faith and not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not as a result of works so that no one may boast." Praise the Lord. Free from tyranny of sin, Satan, religiosity, wondering if I've got enough good works, the treadmill of spirituality, saved from all of that.

But there's more to it: "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them." It's worth pointing out that "walk" in there, *peripateo*, is in the subjunctive mood, meaning it's the mood of possibility. In other words, God's endgame, his desire for us, is not to save us by good works but to save us for good works.

In other words, the good works don't come automatically. That takes growth. And they have nothing to do with birth. Birth is salvation by faith alone. But as you grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ, you start to see very fast that God didn't just save me from something; he saved me to something. He wants to take my life, he wants to take your life, and he wants to begin to express his life through us as he works his plan out in our lives.

And he wants to make us a channel or a vehicle of blessing to other people. This was sort of a shock for me as a new Christian. I remember one time I was in a little church and the pastor got sick and he asked me to fill in. I was about 22, 23 years old, something like that. I was shaking like a leaf. And I got up in front of this little church and I gave a sermon and people were like, "Wow, that was pretty good." Not to brag, but people enjoyed it.

And I started to realize that, wait a minute, God gave me something here. He gave me a teaching gift, he gave me a knowledge gift, he gave me a communication gift. And he wanted to use that to bless other people. And that becomes the significance of spiritual gifts. Every Christian at the point of spiritual birth is given at least one spiritual gift from God. And one of the interesting things about the spiritual gifts is they're all others-focused. They're not focused on the person receiving the gift; they're focused on somebody else.

So when you teach, someone else is edified. When you exercise mercy, someone else is edified. When you exercise administration, someone else is edified. When you lead, someone else is edified, etc. And you say, "Well, pastor, I'd like to learn more about these spiritual gifts. Where do I find them in the Bible?" Well, that's easy. It's as easy as the mnemonic 12-12-4-4: Romans 12, 1st Corinthians 12, 1st Peter 4, Ephesians 4.

If you were to go home this afternoon and read those four chapters, you would have all of the data concerning what the New Testament reveals about spiritual gifts and the fact that every child of God has at least one spiritual gift. I'm convinced most people have more than one because certain gifts kind of run as a tandem, like knowledge and teaching. It's kind of hard to teach if you don't know anything.

So that's kind of a gift mix. There's the gift of evangelism, there's the gift of pastor-teacher, I mean just countless gifts that are spoken of. And they're all about others. And as you begin to move into the realm of your spiritual gifts, you start to see, "Well, this is why God saved me." He saved me not just to keep me out of hell, which is a wonderful thing, but I'm not just saved from something; I'm saved to something.

He wants to use us to expand his eternal purposes upon the earth and that becomes an exciting discovery within Christianity. And that's why the nation of Israel is going to be released from this captivity, not just so that they can get away from the taskmaster and the cruelty that they were under, but so that they could actually get to a point of growth where God would start to use them.

And that becomes his blueprint for all of us. He sets us free to set us free, yes, but that's just half of it. I mean, that's just verses 8 and 9. There's verse 10 where he actually wants to use us. I think that's the part of it that really caused the apostle Paul to just marvel at the grace of God. Paul couldn't believe what God had done for him considering his background. Paul was at one time went by the name Saul. Some say Saul, Paul, those were always derivatives of his name. Not to get into that debate, but Paul or Saul was once an opponent of Christianity.

He was a guy that actually had blood on his hands, this man who became the apostle Paul. He is the one when you study the end of the book of Acts chapter 7 and you move into chapter 8, he is the one that's actually holding the cloaks of those that were throwing rocks literally at a man named Stephen, the first martyr of the Christian or church age. And God saved Saul.

And God didn't just save Saul. I think this is the part of it that really got to him in terms of being just blown away about what God did. God didn't just save Saul; he made him an apostle. He calls himself the apostle that was ill-timed, abnormally born. He says, "If anyone didn't deserve to be an apostle, it would be me."

He says this over and over again in his letters because "I persecuted the church of God. And here I am as an apostle, an advocate for the church of God, promoting the church of God, God using me to expand the church of God." And he just, Saul who became Paul, just could not get over the fact that he had not just been forgiven for what he did, but God started to use him.

It's some like what you see in Ephesians 4 towards the end of the chapter. It talks about these hands that used to steal. Now that you're saved, use those same hands for productive purposes so that you may have something to give, to give away. Hands that used to steal now become hands of charity. And that's our God. And that's a pattern of what he wants to do in our lives.

I wish the good works were automatic in all of our lives. We have to grow into these. But these are things that God seeks to bring forth nonetheless. So the edict is given: "Let my people go." And then you look at verses 2 and 3 and there's a consequence if Pharaoh will not comply. Verse 2: "But if you refuse to let them go and continue to hold them." Notice it's conditional. There's volition.

Pharaoh as an image bearer of God is given a choice. You're either going to let my people go or you're not. Whatever you do is your choice. Which is a frightening thing that God has given us as image bearers of him. He's given us free will. And whatever decision I make with my free will, God will respect.

If you want to reject me and you want to go to hell for all eternity, then you know what? I'm not going to override you. I'm going to respect your decision. Of course I'll convict and agitate you and bother you till your dying day so you don't make a bad decision. But if your decision is you don't want me, you know what? I'm going to respect your call. And if God were to override that, then he wouldn't be respecting how he's made us as image bearers.

There's always a choice with God. That's why when you get into the Garden of Eden, there's two trees there. There's the Tree of Life and there's the Tree of Knowledge. And God was very clear: this tree over here, Tree of Life, it's good for you; this tree over here is bad for you. But if God was not a God that honored choices, there would only be one tree, right?

Why even put the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden to begin with since it's caused so much trouble? Well, because God is a God of choices. He's a God of volition. It's how we're made in his image. And Pharaoh is given that opportunity. Now one of the points I've tried to make as we've gone through this is I believe Pharaoh is a type, if you will, of the devil.

He wants to keep God's people in bondage. Satan is the same way. He's the illegitimate ruler over planet Earth. All of these verses indicate that Satan is the ruler of this world, the prince of this world, the God of this world, the prince and power of the air, a roaring lion who roams about seeking someone to devour. The world lies within his power. He's the one we have to put on the full armor of God.

And he really likes his authority, which was handed over to him by Adam. And Satan came to Jesus testing him, saying, "I'll give you all the kingdoms of the world if you worship me." And Jesus never said, "Well, that isn't true. You don't control the kingdoms of the world." Jesus never negated that because it is true. And this is why the whole creation groans and we ourselves groan even in our bodies, Romans 8 tells us.

And just as Pharaoh really didn't want to let God's people go, Satan doesn't want to let this earth go. He doesn't like the time in history when he will be sentenced and banished and ushered ultimately into the Lake of Fire. But the good news in the whole thing is God wins. There's coming upon the earth the seal judgments and the trumpet judgments and the golden bowl of wrath judgments.

I've made the point as we've gone through this series that those judgments there sound so similar to the judgments in Exodus. You'll see the sores in both books, rivers to blood in both books, darkness in both books, Exodus and Revelation, hail, frogs in both books. And it's a state of warfare that is happening, part of the angelic conflict, and will continue to happen.

And this struggle exists because the devil just does not want to let this world out of his grip, just as Pharaoh didn't. But God won ultimately with Pharaoh. And the great news of the Bible is God is going to win. And if you know Jesus personally, you're on the winning side of history. You may not feel like a winner, you may not look like a winner, you may not have the self-image of a winner, but if you know Jesus, you're an overcomer because he overcame in our place.

The day is coming in history, Revelation 11, verse 15, when the kingdom of the world will become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ and he will rule forever and ever. And I for one can't wait for that because this world is not headed in the right place. There are perpetual problems in this world, and I long for the day where his kingdom will come.

In fact, we're told to pray for this, aren't we? In the disciples' prayer: "Hey Jesus, how should we pray?" Jesus said pray this way: "Thy kingdom come." Pray for the removal of the usurping power of Satan and the establishment of God's kingdom on the earth. And as you go down to verse 3, God articulates the condition. If Pharaoh will not let the people go, what is going to happen?

Verse 3: "Behold, the hand of the Lord will come with a very severe pestilence." You notice how these plagues are getting worse and worse? That's just like the book of Revelation. As humanity will not repent in the book of Revelation, keep saying over and over they would not repent, God just keeps turning up the pressure. It's not just a third of the grass that's burned in Revelation 8.

You get to Revelation 16, all the grass is burned. It's not just a third of the sea that becomes blood, Revelation 8. All the sea becomes blood, Revelation 16. Same type of phenomenon here: "Behold, the hand of the Lord will come with a severe pestilence on your livestock which are in the field: on the horses, on the donkeys, and on the camels, and on the herds, and on the flocks."

It's an interesting thing because each of these judgments that we read about in the book of Exodus is an attack, if you will, on an Egyptian deity. Every single one of these. They worship the Nile; God turned it to blood red. They worship frogs; God multiplied them. They worship gnats and flies; God multiplied them. And Ed Hindson makes this comment about this.

He says, "Such a loss of livestock would be a body blow to both the Egyptians' economy and their religious sensibilities as masses of their sacred animals succumb to the plague. The Egyptian deities challenged by this plague: Apis and Mnevis, both represented by the bull and associated with the gods of Ptah and Ra respectively; Hathor, the cow-headed goddess of love." What a weird goddess of love that is, a cow. "And the ram-god, I think you pronounce that Khnum, guardian of the Nile."

So as God allowed this disease to break out all over this livestock, he was taking aim at all of these deities that the Egyptians were worshipping in the place of God. And that's the nature of God. God hates idolatry. Isaiah chapter 42 and verse 8, God says, "I am the Lord, that is my name; I will not give my glory to another." What is an idol? An idol is anything that we place in importance above God.

Something that I get my security, my sense of self-worth from other than God. It could be anything. It could be a talent, it could be a retirement account, it could be a family. Nothing wrong with families, God created families. But you go through the gospels and people that told Jesus, "I can't follow you because I've got to bury my father," Jesus said things like, "Let the dead bury the dead. You follow me."

It's anything that we place above God in importance. If that's something that's happening in our lives, God is going to take aim at that. That's his nature. He doesn't want any rivals. He's going to reduce us to the point where we see what whatever it is we're trusting in is not going to help us. Only God can help us. One of the greatest idols mentioned in the Bible is money. Nothing wrong with money.

The problem is the love of money. The Bible doesn't say money is the root of all evil; it says love of money is the root of all evil. And Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount talked about this. He said, "No man can serve two masters for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth."

God is a lousy roommate. He doesn't want to share the room. He wants jurisdiction over everything. And one of the great things he does in our lives is he exposes things that we have elevated above him in importance. And that's his nature. And that's what he's going to do with the nation of Israel. Eventually he's going to bring them to Sinai. He's going to give them the law: 613 commandments flowing out of the Decalogue, the first two commandments.

And the first two commandments, and you know them well, they take aim at idolatry: no graven images is one of those; the other one is no gods before me. I mean, you don't have to get far into the law to see God's hostility and hatred for idolatry. And the Egyptians worshipped everything and anything other than the true God. And God starts in these plagues taking aim at each of their idols.

And this is what's going to happen, Pharaoh, if you use your own free will against me. There'll be a consequence. It never pays to do things our own way even though God will respect the decision. Proverbs 13 and verse 15 says, "The way of the transgressor is hard." The devil would like nothing better than for you to believe if you just lived without God, independent of God, that's where liberty is, that's where freedom is, that's where satisfaction is.

And the whole thing is just an absolute lie. It's the opposite. Jesus said in John 10 and 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 or the ultimate or in abundance." Does God love you and have a plan for your life? Yeah, he sure does. He wants you to have life and have it to the full.

But there's another side to that. Satan hates you and has a terrible plan for your life because the first part of that verse John 10:10 says the thief comes to steal, kill and destroy. What is Satan's goal for your life? To steal, to kill and destroy. What is God's plan for your life? That you may have life and have it in abundance or have it to the full.

And so just keep that in mind the next time the devil whispers in your ear that the way to success, enlightenment, nirvana, self-actualization, whatever terms the world is using these days, is to live without God. The devil in the form of a serpent came to Adam and Eve and told them that exact lie. "The day you eat from the tree you'll die." Satan says, "No you won't."

"For God really," Genesis 3, verse 5 is holding out on you is what he's saying. "God knows that if you eat from the tree you'll be like him, knowing good and evil." "Do you want to be godlike, then live without God." That's the lie. And that's the lie that's being taught today all over the world. People believe it constantly. Somehow if I get close to Jesus he's going to wreck my life. And it's the opposite.

The opposite is true. Jesus is the one that takes the chains off. Jesus is the one that sets us free. Jesus really is the one that helps us understand what life is about and why we're even here. That's why he talks about you find your life when you lose your life. You find meaning when you lose what you thought was so helpful to you which we've been deceived into thinking is truth and it's not truth.

So, Pharaoh, if you go your own way, which God will respect because you're an image bearer of God, then there will be a consequence. And this very severe plague is described there in verse 3. But even when this plague comes, God's people are going to be protected through it in this instance. Notice verse 4. It says, "But the Lord will make a distinction between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of Egypt so that nothing will die all that belongs to the sons of Israel."

Isn't that an amazing thing? Pharaoh, you can make your decision and the nation under your authority will experience a terrible consequence, but God's people living in Goshen are going to be supernaturally protected. That same kind of thing happens a lot in the book of Revelation. I don't think it happens every time. But it talks about people who had not received the mark of the beast and consequently were spared from certain judgments.

You'll see that in Revelation 9, verse 4, Revelation 16, verse 2. And of course we would expect to see that parallel in Revelation because Revelation is the ultimate Exodus. God is not just taking his nation out of Egyptian bondage; he's taking the whole planet out of the bondage that it's been in ever since Satan became the unlawful usurper over planet Earth once Adam turned the keys over to the devil.

But notice verse 5 where God puts in some timing. This shows us his sovereignty over these judgments. Verse 5 says, "The Lord," still instructing Moses and Aaron what they're to say to Pharaoh, "The Lord set a definite time saying, 'Tomorrow the Lord will do this thing.'" So exactly tomorrow at a particular point, this plague is going to start. And of course, this helps us to defend the idea that these are supernatural judgments.

What people have a tendency to do, they'll do this on *Mysteries of the Bible*, A&E, the History Channel. They'll bring on someone from "Hah-vud" as I like to say, trying to kind of dismiss the miraculous nature of the miraculous. I mean, these are just, so the Nile turned to blood, that was just some silt that came up and it comes up a certain time of the year.

And when that happens, that upsets the frogs and they jump out of the Nile, so that's how they explain the frogs. And they take what's miraculous and they turn it into something naturalistic. That's what the unbelieving mind always does: it takes something supernatural and tries to pretend like it's natural. There's nothing more supernatural than creation: that we are living in a universe that's designed and created.

Does it take any skill to defend that? That's just stating the obvious. No two of our fingerprints are the same. Snowflakes examined under a microscope, of all of the snowflakes that have fallen in human history, are never exactly the same. And here we are with the earth moving around the sun in our heliocentric universe and solar system and we're not so close to the sun that we burn to death and we're not so far away from the sun that we freeze to death.

And we move orbiting the exact distance from the sun to sustain life. It's absolutely miraculous. And yet your average person today has been deceived into thinking that all of this came about coincidentally. It's called evolution from the "goo" to you by way of the zoo over billions of years. A naturalistic explanation to the supernatural. Because the evolutionists say, "We can't allow," this is almost a direct quote, "we can't allow a divine foot in the door."

Well, why not? Well, the moment we acknowledge God, we have to acknowledge that we are under his authority, and we can't have that. So the naturalistic unbelieving mind works overtime to explain away what's an obvious miracle. It's very similar to what happened on the Day of Pentecost as the Holy Spirit fell and they began speaking in known languages that they had never learned.

Bible translates that as tongues. And it was an obvious miracle that happened there in Acts 2. And yet the unbelievers said, "Oh, they're just drunk." And Peter says, "Are you out of your mind? It's nine o'clock in the morning." I've had alcoholics in my extended family, none of them started drinking that early. Maybe three hours later, but not that early.

And Peter says, "You guys are absolutely being foolish the way you're looking at a miracle here and trying to pretend like it's just something naturalistic." And so people will do this with these Exodus judgments. But the biblical text won't allow you to do that because of these details. Moses knew beforehand about these plagues. That's miraculous. And then you have what you have here: their instantaneous appearance and termination.

They're going to start tomorrow and it's going to end at a particular point. They're described as signs and wonders. They keep intensifying as Pharaoh's heart continues to grow harder and harder. They're timed by God. They achieve a moral purpose. God allows them to happen until a moral purpose is achieved. I mean, even Pharaoh's magicians tried to imitate them.

So Pharaoh's magicians saw them as something supernatural, not naturalistic at all. As we're seeing here, the last seven plagues did not even affect the Jews living in Goshen. God said the plague is going to happen over here but not over there. And then by the way, when the Nile turned to blood, people say, "Well, everybody just all their water supply was contaminated because they got the water from the Nile."

But that's not what the Bible says. It talks about rivers, streams, pools, reservoirs and independent vessels holding water that that very second turned to blood as well. And so make no mistake about it, these plagues that have come on Egypt are supernatural. So, Pharaoh, this is what's going to happen if you go against my will. The way of the treacherous is hard.

And then you drop down to verse 6. And are you surprised to read this? Everything God said would happen, happens. Verse 6: here's a short-term prophecy coming into fulfillment. "So the Lord did this thing on the next day. And all the livestock of Egypt died, but of the livestock of the sons of Israel not one died." Everything that God said would happen, happened.

And this is a pattern in the Bible. This is why I like to promote this particular book, *Every Prophecy of the Bible*, because it will show you this pattern constantly in scripture. Everything that God says will happen, happens. Short-term prophecies: you're going to go into captivity for 70 years. Guess what? They went into captivity for exactly 70 years. Not 68 years, not 73 years: 70 years.

Jesus made reference to this constantly in the final week of his life. He said to his disciples in the upper room, "From now on I am telling you before it comes to pass so that when it does occur you might believe that I am he," John 13, verse 19. John 14, verse 29: "Now I have told you before it happens so that when it happens you may believe." And he's telling his 11, Judas having already left the room, handpicked disciples, "I'm going to give you a series of short-term predictions and they're going to happen this week.

And when they come into existence this week, you'll know exactly who I am. There will be no ambiguity in your minds that I am he," I am being a divine title. That's a title of God as we have studied Exodus 3, verse 14. And exactly what he said happened. Peter, and he starts calling out the guys that are going to fulfill the prophecies. Can you imagine that?

"Peter, you're going to deny me three times." "No way!" "Yeah, three times. Not twice, not four times: three times." Biblical prophecy fulfilled. "I'm going to be betrayed by a friend," speaking of Judas, someone Jesus called a friend to the very end. The Jews wouldn't kill me, the Gentiles will. He said that over and over again, and that's exactly what happened.

He was rushed through the Jewish judicial system and turned over to Rome for execution because Rome had come to power and taken away from the Jews the power of capital punishment. And it was just prediction after prediction after prediction that happened in real time. And I am completely convinced that when these 11 saw this, there was no ambiguity in their minds as to the identity of Jesus.

And they would have, if they could have, they would have walked right through a wall for him if they could. And they did. I mean, these guys that he's talking to are going to go into the big bad world out there, and they're not going to die of natural causes. They're all going to be killed. The only exception to the rule is John, who was stubborn and he wouldn't die.

They tried to kill him, they tried to boil him in oil, and they couldn't get the guy dead. So they just threw him out on an island called Patmos, which is a island there on the Aegean Sea off the coast of Asia Minor. And that was God's purpose for John, because there he would receive the final book of the Bible that we call the Book of Revelation.

But look what happened to these guys. James the son of Alphaeus went to Jerusalem where he was clubbed to death. Simon the Zealot went to Jerusalem where he was martyred. James the son of Zebedee went to Judea where he was executed. Thaddaeus went to Mesopotamia where he was beaten to death. Peter went to Babylon or Rome or some combination thereof where he was crucified upside down.

*Foxe's Book of Martyrs* documents these things. Peter not even wanting to be crucified like Jesus was crucified. He saw himself unworthy. "So crucify me," he says, "upside down," according to tradition. Matthew went to today what we call modern-day Tehran where he was beheaded. John was flung onto the island of Patmos although they tried to kill him, they tried to fry him in boiling oil.

Philip went to East Turkey where he was tortured and crucified. Thomas went to India where he was speared. Bartholomew went to India where he was flayed. And I don't even want to describe what that means. It's a form of death that's so disgusting, it's not even appropriate to talk about it in family circles. But he was flayed and crucified. Andrew went to Ukraine, Russia, Greece where he was hanged.

And you gotta ask yourself why did these guys do this? Because they knew who he was. And they knew who he was because of his predictions. Of course, the power of the Holy Spirit came upon them and compelled them, and that's obviously a big piece of the puzzle. But part of it was there was no question mark in their minds as to the identity of Jesus.

Because he talked about this issue of fulfilling prophecy in the last week of his life, Passion Week, right there with him in the upper room. So why am I a prophecy enthusiast? Why did we have all day yesterday a rapture seminar? Why even waste time with that? Because all of these end-time prophecies are going to happen. Everything on this chart from rapture onward is going to take place because the Bible has a track record.

The John Walvoord book, *Every Prophecy of the Bible*, documents this. Everything that God says will happen, happens because God can't lie. There are certain things that not even God can do, did you know that? The philosophers say, "Well, can God make a rock so big that he can't lift it?" And the answer is no. God is always sovereign over his creation. Can God tell a lie? He cannot.

That's why the commandments, one of them is thou shalt not lie, thou shalt not bear false witness. We're to speak the truth in love. "You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free." Jesus, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me." Why all this emphasis on truth? Because that's who God is. God is truthful. It's impossible for God to lie.

I think that's Hebrews 6, verse 19. God is not a man that he should lie, Numbers 23, verse 19. God does not lie, Titus 1, verse 2. If that's how God is and we're to imitate his character, then we shouldn't be people of duplicitousness, cunning, conniving, manipulating, fooling. That's not who we are because that's not who God is.

You know, the God of Islam is a deceiver in their theology and can lie. You can get before Allah on the Day of Judgment and he can say to you, "You know what? You've done a lot of good works but haha, just fooling. I just ripped the carpet out from under you. You're going to hell." That's not the God of the Bible.

The God of the Bible is 100% truthful 100% of the time, including the things that he has said are yet to come. And I should believe those things because it's part of God's character and as we're seeing here, it's part of God's track record. If you make 10 free throws in a row, well, nine, there's probably a pretty good chance you're going to make the 10th one. That's what these fulfilled prophecies in scripture point us towards.

This is a wonderful area of study called eschatology. *Eschatos* and *-ology*, the study of what the Bible says about the end. And you can study that right alongside theology, the study of God; Christology, the study of Christ; pneumatology, the study of the spirit, these come from Greek words, *pneuma* being the spirit; anthropos, man, the study of man; hamartiology, *hamartia* meaning sin, the study of sin; soteriology, *soterios* salvation, the study of salvation; angelology, the study of the angels.

The good angels, Lucifer who became Satan, a fallen angel, and the third that he deceived in his Luciferian rebellion called demons. We can learn about those in the scripture. Ecclesiology, the study of the church. Arnold Fruchtenbaum throws in Israelology, the study of Israel. Prolegomena at the beginning, *pro-*, intro, *legomena* word, introductory word.

What are some things you have to assume to do theology right? And last on the list is eschatology, the study of the end. What does the future hold? I know of no other holy book on planet Earth that will lay out the future as if it's already happened. But your Bible does that constantly and challenges us to believe the things unfulfilled yet to come. Prophetic fulfillment, everything that God said happened.

And look at Pharaoh's reaction. And this is frightening because this is Pharaoh's last call. That's why I entitled this message "The Last Call." Verse 7 says Pharaoh sent and behold there was not even one of the livestock of Israel dead. But the heart of Pharaoh was hardened and he did not let the people go. So when it says there Pharaoh sent, probably what that means is he sent someone to Goshen, or someone came to him from Goshen, or maybe he himself went to Goshen where the Jews were after this severe plague had broken out all over the animals all over Egypt.

And he went to Goshen to see if God's word was true. And he saw that none of the plagues hit the Jewish people or the Jewish livestock. Isn't it a wonderful thing that when judgment comes one day, you as a Christian are not a candidate for it? Romans 8, verse 1 says, "Therefore there is now no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus."

I'm here to tell you folks, judgment is coming. I believe that because of my belief in eschatology, *eschatos* last, *-ology* study of the end. But not only am I a believer in eschatology, I'm a believer in soteriology: salvation. That Jesus 2,000 years ago took his wrath in my place. He took the wrath of a holy God, God the Father, in my place.

2,000 years ago, one member of the Trinity, God the Father, poured out his wrath on another member of the Trinity, God the Son, so that wrath would not have to be borne by me or you, if we receive what he did in our place as a free gift. And that's Christology. And part of Christology is studying that Jesus as my substitute. Not someone who comes into my life to make it complete, that's part of it.

Not someone who gives me leadership principles, that's part of it. Not someone who gives me tips for better emotional control, that's part of it. But that's a small narrow understanding about Jesus. Jesus ultimately died as my substitute. And as the god-man, he's the only one that could do it. Only eternal God could bear the wrath of an eternal consequence for sin.

He's the secret service agent that jumps in front of the bullet at the last minute and absorbs it in the place of the intended victim. There's a lot of things to know about Jesus in Christology, but I hope he never forget this one: he was your substitute and he was my substitute. And the death that he died on the cross, I should have died it. But Jesus exempted me from it.

And so when the judgment comes, the judgment will pass right over me. That's by the way what Passover means. There's a big Passover scene coming in Exodus 12. Judgment just passed right over the death of the firstborn. That judgment passed right on over the Jewish homes when God saw the blood of the Passover lamb, which must be perfect and have no bones broken.

Sound familiar? Typifying Christ. When God saw that blood of the Passover lamb on the doorposts of the Jewish homes, his judgment passed right on over. And so Jesus is our Passover lamb. Judgment is coming but I'm not a candidate for it. As far as difficulty, Satan's wrath, yeah, man's wrath, yeah I experience that, world's wrath, yeah.

But not God's wrath. And for that we should rejoice. Amen? And so you look at the second part of this as Pharaoh has done some inspection here and seen that what God said would happen, happened. I mean, wouldn't you think Pharaoh would just repent at this point? But he doesn't do that. It says, "But the heart of Pharaoh was hardened and he did not let the people go."

This is a self-hardening because God's name is not mentioned here. Ed Hindson says, "The first five initial plagues, the text registers Pharaoh as the agent of his 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 harden Pharaoh's heart preceded it all.

God is respecting the volition of Pharaoh. There's a prediction of divine hardening, chapter 4, verse 21. And then there's about six examples of Pharaoh hardening his own heart. And then finally you get to chapter 9, verse 12, which is coming next week. And you read these frightening words. And this is the first time it reads this way in everything in the book of Exodus that we studied.

It says in chapter 9, verse 12, "And the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart." Well, that's new. Never said that before. Talked about Pharaoh's self-hardening six times. And then finally you get to plague number six and it says the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart. What's happening here? God gave Pharaoh over to what Pharaoh wanted to do. And God said, "I won't bother you anymore."

That's a terrifying thing when you think about it. Pharaoh knew the truth but suppressed it. Unbelievers do that constantly. Romans 1, verses 18 through 20 says, "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness, and men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness." That's the problem. It's not a lack of information. It's a desire to live without it is the problem.

Because that which is known about God is evident within them, for God made it evident to them. We say, "I wish so-and-so an unbeliever would go to church and hear a sermon that they could get saved." What I'm telling you is they hear sermons every day. It's called natural revelation. They know God exists but they choose to suppress it.

"For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen," sermons every day, "being understood through what has been made so that they are without excuse." The problem isn't a lack of information; it's a suppression of it. "We can't allow a divine foot in the door." So Pharaoh keeps doing this over and over and over again through about six plagues, five plagues, and finally in chapter 9, verse 12, plague number six I guess that is, now for the first time the God's name is inserted into this and it says the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart.

What did God say before he sent the flood in Genesis 6, verse 3? The Lord said, "My spirit shall not strive with man forever." We are so accustomed to the grace of God we just think it continues forever, and it doesn't. Jeremiah 7 and verse 16 reads this way: "As for you, do not pray for this people. Do not lift up cry or prayer for them and do not intercede with me, for I do not hear you."

Is that in the Bible? That is in the Bible. I mean, I thought we were supposed to pray for people and intercede. And we are. But it reached a point in Jeremiah's day where God said, "Stop it. I'm done." Last call. Pharaoh, this is your last chance because once you rebel against me again, you've crossed the point of no return.

And it won't be just you hardening your heart against me; it will be me expediting the process. This is Pharaoh's last opportunity, which he is turning down. Psalm 95, verses 7 and 8 says, "Today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as Meribah as in the day of Massah in the wilderness." And so that's our appeal today.

If you hear God's voice, don't assume I can turn it down and hear it tomorrow. Maybe you can, maybe that'll happen, maybe it won't. I don't know, I'm not God. It's his call. But if you hear his voice today, respond today. Today is the day of salvation. And I'm not just making an appeal here for lost people to get saved.

I'm making an appeal to believers where God over and over again, because of some kind of pocket of rebellion in our lives, keeps saying, "This needs to change. This needs to change. This needs to change." And we just postpone it, and we ignore it, and we put it off. And if I'm reading the Bible correctly, we do that to our detriment.

And we do it under the false assumption that that grace and conviction is always going to be there. If I'm reading my Bible correctly, you reach a point where God just honors your decision. Today is a day of salvation. Today if you would hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. Wow.

Well, if anyone is here today and they don't know Christ personally, today is the day of salvation. Jesus stepped out of eternity into time, lived a life in my place that I can't live, died a terrible death to pay a penalty for my sins that I can't pay. Did it all on my place. Final words on the cross were, "It is finished," meaning paid in full.

And he says, "I want you to trust what I did for you 2,000 years ago as a gift." And you receive this gift through faith alone. Faith is another way of saying trust, reliance, dependence. I hope many people within the sound of my voice will do what God says and place their personal faith in him for salvation. Today if you would hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. Amen. Challenge you to read Exodus 9, the rest of the chapter, in preparation for next week. Shall we pray?

Father, we're grateful for your word, grateful for your truth, grateful for the things it speaks to us that we don't always want to hear but need to hear. "You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free." We thank you for that. We'll be careful to give you all the praise and the glory.