Sugar Land Bible Church

Dr. Andy Woods: Good morning, everyone. Let's take our Bibles this morning and open them to the book of Exodus, chapter 10 and verse 7. Lord willing, I'm going to try to make it through verse 15 today. The title of our message this morning is Divine Sarcasm.

When your kids out there say, "Hey, don't be sarcastic," just say, "Well, I'm being like the Lord." No, that's probably not exactly what this means, but we are in the middle of a study on the book of Exodus. The first part of the book is God is redeeming a nation. Redemption is the freeing of someone from bondage through the spilled blood of an innocent animal, in this case, the Passover lamb.

The nation of Israel has been in bondage for 400 years. All the way back in the time of Abram, whose name later became Abraham, God predicted in Genesis 15, verse 13 and verse 16, that they would be in that position, the nation of Israel, for about four generations, 400 years, and then they would come out of this Egyptian bondage with great possessions.

By the time you get to the book of Exodus, God is saying it's time. It's time to take his people out of the slavery that has been enforced against them through a Pharaoh that knew not Joseph. And so God has raised up an instrument, as God typically does. When he wants to work, he works through an instrument. We all identify with that instrument because he has all of the insecurities and foibles and hang-ups that the rest of us have.

But God molds and shapes his character a certain way, and he is now the instrument that God is using along with his brother Aaron to rain 10 plagues down upon Egypt. And so we are in the midst of studying plague number seven, having looked at the Nile to blood, the frogs, the gnats, the flies, the death of the livestock, the boils, the hail. Cheer up, folks, it gets worse. Now we're running into locusts.

And God gives some instructions to Moses and Aaron in verses 1 and 2. Moses and Aaron speak to Pharaoh the first time. Pharaoh is non-conciliatory, non-repentant, in verses 3 through 6. And now they leave Moses and Aaron, as we saw last week, Pharaoh's presence. But now there's a question, and they speak to Pharaoh a second time. And that's in verses 7 through 11. This whole exchange begins with a question from Pharaoh's servants.

So notice, if you will, Exodus chapter 10 and verse 7. It says, "Pharaoh's servants said to him, 'How long will this man be a snare to us? Let the men go that they may serve the Lord their God. Do you not realize that Egypt is being destroyed?'" or "is destroyed." It's kind of interesting, this is a part of the conversation that takes place outside of the earshot of Moses and Aaron.

And even Pharaoh's servants say to Pharaoh, "You've got to do what this man tells you to do because he is an instrument of a higher power." And so even Pharaoh's servants, assistants, associates, etc., recognize that God was using Moses. Moses at this particular time in history was the instrument of the Lord. And he did not arrive in that position overnight.

When we study the life of Moses, as we've looked at, he lived to the ripe old age of 120. There are three 40-year increments to Moses' life. The first was his natural training in Egypt where he discovered his natural abilities, natural education, but he wasn't very far along spiritually because when he saw an Egyptian abusing a Hebrew, he murdered the Egyptian. That's not how you do the work of God.

So he needs spiritual training. And that's when he flees into Midian where, as I like to say, he got his BD degree, his backside of the desert degree, where he was reduced to what we would consider menial labor, tending the flock of his father-in-law Jethro for 40 years. Moses is reduced to about nothing at this point, and probably at one of his lowest points, he sees the burning bush around the age of 80 and God says, "Now it's time to be used by me."

And Moses, having been humiliated, has such a low view of himself that he says, "Lord, you must have the wrong guy. Get somebody else." God convinces Moses, he brings him into the ministry at the age of 80, and boy, age 80 to age 120, that's the most productive years of his life. It's during this time he will be used by God to free the nation of Israel from Egyptian bondage. It's during this time that the events of the Exodus transpire. It's during this section of his life that he writes the Hebrew Bible, the first five books of it, Torah, the second of which we are studying here.

And Moses became what he became because he allowed the Lord to mold and shape his character. A lot of us would love to be used by the Lord, but we can't be used by the Lord the way he wants to use us because we're not willing to walk with God in that middle section there. We want things done our own way, we don't want the Lord to interrupt our plans, and yet God is in the business of taking these lumps of clay, which is really what we are at the end of the day, and molding and shaping and sculpting them into a usable vessel. And that is a process. It's not always a fun and enjoyable process, but it is a process nonetheless, not for salvation—that's not what we're dealing with here—but for usability.

And now Moses, becoming that pliable instrument in the hand of God, is even recognized by God's enemies saying, "This is the man that God is using. Pharaoh, you've got to comply with what this man wants." Paul in the New Testament tells us this in 2nd Timothy 2, verses 20 through 26. He says, "In a large house there are not only gold and silver vessels, but also vessels of wood and earthenware, some for dishonor and some for honor." It's just like in your house, there's silverware and there's plasticware.

You break out the plasticware for certain occasions, but the silverware, that's special. That's for special occasions. Paul says in verse 21, 2nd Timothy 2, "Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from these things, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified and useful to the Master, prepared for every good work." And I say, "Lord, I don't want to be a piece of plastic. I want to be a vessel of gold or silver. I want to be silverware, not plasticware." This is not dealing with saved versus unsaved, this is dealing with usable for noble purposes, usable for common purposes.

So how do I stop being plastic and become silverware? Paul tells us: "Now flee from youthful lusts. And pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. But refuse foolish and ignorant speculations, knowing that they only produce quarrels." 21st-century translation: don't spend too much time on social media.

The Lord's bond-servant must not be quarrelsome. A lot of fighting fundies out there, pugnacious about everything. And God's people shouldn't be that way. The Lord's bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but must be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps the Lord may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth and they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been held captive to do his will.

Well, if I want to transfer from plastic to silver, I've got my work cut out for me. I need the Lord to change my character. Not be so hot-tempered, reactionary at every little inconvenience. Be kind to people, even those that cause us irritation. I need to flee from youthful lusts. What is that? Those are desires that are common amongst young people. Typically, we look at youthful lusts as sexual, and certainly, it could be that, but young people are particularly prone to the desire for some sort of self-promotion.

It even happens in the theology world. The desire to be published, the desire to get recognized, the desire to be well-known, the desire to be respected. These are common desires that people have, and yet those should not be the focus of my life. What should be the focus of my life is the things of the Lord. And as the Lord changes me and molds me in that way, then all of a sudden I'm not plastic anymore, but I'm silver and gold. And that's what God is doing with Moses here. And even Pharaoh's servants recognize it.

Verse 7 says, "Pharaoh's servant said to him, 'How long will this man be a snare to us? Let the men go that they may serve the Lord their God.'" Hey Pharaoh, let them go. This guy's going to be an encumbrance to us. Let them go that they may serve. Go, serve. Liberation, service. Isn't that a summation of Christianity? First Jesus sets us free from the slave market of sin, and then he works in our lives in such a way that he wants to actually use us to advance his purposes on the earth.

John chapter 8 and verse 32, Jesus says, "You will know the truth and the truth will make you free." John chapter 8, verse 36 says, "So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed." Christianity is all about liberation from bondage. In our case, it's the bondage of original sin and its horrific consequences. At the point of faith alone in Christ alone, a person is freed from that. And we are not saved by good works, but we are saved unto good works.

When God saved you, he had a vision of all of the people that he was going to reach through you. And God uses us all differently with different giftings, but that is the end game. That's what God wants for the believer. It's summed up in Ephesians 2, verses 8 through 10: "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one will boast." Don't stop reading there, because verse 10 comes after verse 9, amen?

"For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we would walk in them." The Greek there is the subjunctive mood, that we would or might or could or should walk in them. Salvation is automatic the moment you trust Christ, but whether you transfer from plastic to silver, that's a different set of choices. Am I going to cooperate with God in this character-shaping process or not? That's what Moses went through. That's why he is recognized as this servant of the Lord.

And then you go to the end of verse 7 of Exodus chapter 10. And the servant says, "Do you not realize that Egypt is destroyed?" And God had destroyed Egypt with the Nile turning to blood, frogs, gnats, flies, disease on cattle, boils, and hail. You notice that "destroyed" here doesn't mean Egypt didn't exist anymore. And I bring that up because in Sunday School, we've been dealing with this doctrine of annihilationism. The idea that when you die as an unbeliever, you just stop existing. And that's how they interpret the word "destroyed."

But here you'll see very clearly that Egypt is destroyed, but Egypt didn't stop existing. Hell itself is not a lack of existence. It's like a car that's taken to the junkyard. They'll smash the windows and do something with the tires and maybe put it in that giant compressor which smashes it. So the car is in a destroyed state, but the car still exists. You're in a broken state, but you still exist. The word "destroyed," actually *diaphtheirō* in 2nd Corinthians chapter 6, verse 14, is used of our bodies going through the aging process because of original sin.

Paul writes there, "Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying." Do you believe that's true? It's a way to prove it. Just break out your high school yearbook and then look at your modern-day driver's license picture, and you'll see exactly what I'm talking about. There's something going on with our bodies that's original sin. It's the penalty for rebelling against our Creator, where God was very clear to our forebears back in Genesis: "From dust you are, to dust you shall return." And it's a painful process to go through, but Paul says we do not lose heart because the inner man, that's the work of the Holy Spirit and the new nature inside of us, is being renewed day by day. But notice that "destroyed" is applied here to that aging process, but nobody would interpret "destroyed" here as not existing anymore, anymore than you would interpret being destroyed here in Exodus 10, verse 7, as somehow Egypt doesn't exist anymore.

So that's Pharaoh's servant's question, and here comes the entrance of Moses and Aaron back into Pharaoh's court. Exodus chapter 10 and notice if you will verse 8. It says, "So Moses and Aaron were brought back to Pharaoh." Just like they were introduced to Pharaoh in the first conversation, going back to verse 3. And now Pharaoh gives a command.

It says in verse 8, "And he said to them, 'Go, serve the Lord.'" So even Pharaoh himself recognizes that what is required of the Christian, what the end game is for the Christian, is not just liberation from sin and its penalty at the point of faith alone in Christ alone, but it's God wants to transform us and use us in such a way that he can use us to advance his purposes on the earth. That's back to Ephesians 2, verse 10, which even Pharaoh himself seems to understand and recognize.

So Pharaoh says, "Go and serve the Lord." But you know what? Pharaoh's a slippery guy. He's a slippery eel. You have to read the fine print. He's the kind of guy you shake his hand and then recognize a few minutes later that two of your fingers are missing because he's always got these conditions. He doesn't want to—yes, you can go, but not really. So here is some of his conditions starting to bubble to the surface. End of verse 8: "You can go, oh by the way, question: Who are those who are going?"

So you see in Pharaoh a reluctance to really do what God wants done here is to let the nation of Israel completely and totally out of Egyptian bondage and captivity. Now, many times in this series, in this book study that we're moving through, I've explained that Pharaoh is a type of the devil. Egypt is a type of the world. And just as God wanted to and successfully accomplished the liberation of Israel out of Egypt, God has that same plan for planet earth. He's going to take this entire planet, which has been under bondage since the fall of man, and lead it out of bondage in what I would call the ultimate Exodus.

Make no mistake about it, that currently Satan is the ruler of this world. The keys were given to him by Adam when he rebelled against God in Eden. This is why Satan is called over and over again the prince of this world, the god of this world, the prince and power of the air. He is the one that the believer wrestles with. He roams about like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour, and the whole world lies within his power. And you see all of the New Testament references that teach that.

Consequently, Paul in the book of Romans chapter 8, verse 22, says that because of this, the whole creation is groaning. Even our physical bodies are groaning because of this. Romans 8, verse 22 and verse 23. And so planet earth is in bondage. We're living in a very dark time and in a very dark world. People instinctively and reflexively want to blame God for it all. Even insurance companies call hurricanes and tsunamis and the like "acts of God."

And I'm always thinking, can't we give the devil a little credit? And this is the sad state that our world is in. And yet, when you read the whole story, when you read the whole narrative, when you read the whole book, you discover that God has a plan in motion where he's going to take this entire world out of the bondage that it has been in ever since the fall of man. And when we get to the book of Revelation, we read those glorious words: "The kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ." And I say amen to that. This is what we're to pray for to materialize. We're to pray, "Thy kingdom come." Matthew 6 and verse 10.

And as I've tried to explain many times, this is why so much of the imagery in the book of Exodus shows up in the book of Revelation. Sores: sixth plague Exodus, first bowl judgment Revelation. Rivers to blood: first plague Exodus, third bowl judgment Revelation. Darkness: which is what we're moving into here with these locusts, ninth plague Exodus, fifth bowl judgment Revelation. Frogs: second plague Exodus, sixth bowl judgment Revelation. Hail: seventh plague Exodus, seventh bowl judgment the book of Revelation. What is happening is God is taking an entire planet through the ultimate Exodus.

And you know what? He's going to win. And if I align myself with Jesus and come to him on his terms, I'm going to win too. This is why the Bible looks at me as an overcomer, looks at you as an overcomer. And you might say to yourself, "I don't feel like an overcomer. I don't look like an overcomer." But it doesn't matter. You are an overcomer because you're connected to the one who in the end overcomes.

But even though this is what's going to happen in the end, the devil is not going to just sit there and play dead. He's going to fight God every step of the way and try to keep his tentacles and his grip on this planet. And that's why the book of Revelation describes intense spiritual warfare that's coming, a cosmic struggle, a cosmic conflict. And the devil doesn't want to let planet earth go. He has enjoyed being the illegitimate ruler over planet earth all of this time. He's not going to let it go without a fight, anymore than Pharaoh is going to let Israel go out of Egypt.

So Moses has an answer, verse 9. "You can go, but are all of you going to go?" kind of thing. Notice Moses' answer, verse 9. Moses said, "We shall go with our young and our old, and with our sons and our daughters, and with our flocks and herds. We shall go, for we must hold a feast to the Lord." So Moses says, "When I say God speaking through me, 'Let my people go,' I'm not talking about 75% of us or 50% of us. I'm talking about all of us from the youngest to the oldest, and our property, animals, and everything, herds and flocks, and everything else as well."

Because God is interested in all of us. He's not interested in being a roommate with somebody else. And we can do that with God. The Holy Spirit comes in us at the point of faith alone in Christ alone, and then we say to the Holy Spirit, we say to the Lord, "Well, you can have this little room over in the corner. But the living room belongs to me. The closet space belongs to me. The balcony belongs to me. But enjoy living over here in the broom closet." And that's not what God wants. He wants everything. He wants the living space, he wants the kitchen. He is not interested in us partitioning and sectioning out parts of our lives that belong to us while the rest of it belongs to God.

He wants your finances. He wants your emotional health. He wants your physical body. He wants your mind. Aren't there countless scriptures that tell us to renew the mind and offer our bodies as a living sacrifice? I remember the first time I got some money and I sort of felt convicted to give some of it to the Lord. I had this mindset that I was giving to the Lord my money. And the Lord said, "Excuse me? It's not your money. I'm the one that gave you the ability to get that money. I gave you the work ability, the health, the intelligence, whatever it takes. It's not your money, it's my money."

And I'm not talking like this like we've got some big financial crisis. We don't really have a big financial crisis here, praise the Lord. But the truth of the matter is if you don't want to give to any ministry because it's your money, then go ahead and keep it. The truth of the matter is it's not your money, it's the Lord's money. It's like, "Lord, you've given me these resources. Who do you want me to bless in and through these resources that you have entrusted to me?" It's the concept of being a steward or a manager.

Everybody in here has three things that God gave them. And God is going to call to an account how we use those three things. They all begin with the letter T: time, talent, and treasure. At a bare minimum, those are the three things you possess. God is going to ask you one day, "What did you do with those things I gave you?" because those things you don't own, you manage. That's what a steward does. He manages on behalf of somebody else. And so God is interested in all of us. He's interested in our worldview, he's interested in how we think.

James chapter 4 and verse 5 says this: "Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose? He jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us." James is saying the Spirit is in you, but if you've got him relegated to some subsection of your life, he's jealous of that. He's envious of that because he wants all your life. And let me tell you from experience, the faster you can relinquish those things to the Lord, you're going to be a lot more content in life, believe me. And so Moses is saying here, "All of us are going. And we have a job, Pharaoh. We're going to go hold a feast unto the Lord."

Now this is introducing something that would take place at Mount Sinai through the giving of the Law. It finds its fullest expression in the seven Levitical feasts, a festival system that will be implemented. Here you just see it hinted at, but it's coming in greater description and detail. You have four spring feasts and three fall feasts. The first spring feast- boy, we're getting ready to celebrate this one, aren't we? Passover, which celebrates Israel's redemption from Egypt. Then right after that would come unleavened bread, which celebrates Israel's speed at which they left Egypt. Because it takes time for bread to leaven. So don't bring the unleavened bread because we're getting out now. When God says it's time to go, we're leaving pronto.

And then comes firstfruits, which is a feast designed to celebrate the initial crop coming in. And that's always a happy time because when the firstfruits come in, it guarantees that the rest of the crop is going to come in. Then would come Pentecost, where the full crop would be celebrated. And then would come trumpets, nothing to do with the Rapture. A lot of people they see the word trumpet and they think every trumpet is the Rapture, as if God can't have more than one trumpet. This is a trumpet for called Rosh Hashanah, celebrating Israel's New Year.

And then would come Atonement, Leviticus 16, where God would kick the can down the road for a year related to the consequences of Israel's sins. It wouldn't resolve the sin problem, but it would postpone the note of indebtedness for a year. And then came booths, which celebrated God's miraculous provision for his people during the wilderness wanderings, which we will see coming up in the book of Exodus. And they all occur at a specific time on the Jewish calendar. And if seven aren't enough, boy, the Jews got some great victory in the book of Esther. They were delivered from Haman, so they developed a feast out of that called Purim.

And then the nation of Israel was radically persecuted by a man named Antiochus Epiphanes during the testamental period, and under the Maccabean Revolt, the temple was liberated from Seleucid rule and restored to God's service. The menorah is supposed to burn eight days, and there was only oil for one day, and yet it miraculously burned for the proper time for temple rededication. And a special festival comes out of that called Hanukkah, Feast of Lights. And let me tell you something, folks, there's nothing more beautiful than to travel to Jerusalem and see the whole place lit up with lights around December when this particular feast day is honored within the land of Israel. I've had the privilege of seeing that. And so that one was added to the calendar. Nine feasts total.

And let me tell you something about Jesus, whom we just finished singing about. Do you know Jesus respected all those feasts? John's Gospel: He went up to Jerusalem to celebrate these various feasts. He celebrated Passover in John 2:23. He celebrated an unnamed feast in John 5:1. He celebrated Tabernacles in John 7:2. He celebrated Dedication, which is the non-Levitical Hanukkah, Feast of Lights feast, which was added to the calendar because of the miracle that God did for the nation of Israel during the intertestamental period. He celebrated that one in John 10:22. And he celebrated Passover in John 13:1. Purim and Hanukkah added to the calendar when it looked like Israel was about to be wiped out and God came through for them at the last minute.

Now your New Testament is not going to re-explain these feasts for you. That's why when you come to the New Testament, you see these names but you get no explanation, because the New Testament is assuming that you already understand these feasts as revealed in what Jewish people call Hebrew Bible or Tanakh. That's how the Bible is set up. The New Testament does not change the Old Testament, but it's meant to be understood in light of what has been already revealed in the Old Testament. And a lot of New Testament readers are confused because they haven't taken the time to read Hebrew Bible.

By the way, each of those feasts is prophetic. Passover points to the death of Jesus Christ, 1st Corinthians 5:7, he's our Passover lamb. Unleavened bread points to Jesus as the bread of life, John 6:35. This one should hit home because we're celebrating it this coming week: firstfruits points to his resurrection, 1st Corinthians 15:20. And Pentecost points to the day of Pentecost, Acts 2:1-4, where the new church was birthed, and yet the nation of Israel remained in unbelief, attributing the work of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost to drunkenness.

So the first four feasts, those spring feasts, point to the first coming of Jesus Christ when the nation of Israel turned their back on their own Messiah. And then when you look at the calendar, you see there's a long period of time between the spring feasts and the fall feasts. What is that long period of time? That's us. We're the long period of time.

That's the period of time when the nation of Israel is currently in unbelief, where God is at work through a new man called the church in the church age. And yet what Paul tells us is God is using his work through the church to provoke national Israel to jealousy where they will desire that place of preeminence back. And that's that long period of time between the spring and the fall feasts. But one of these days, the church is not going to be here anymore. The church is going to be taken to heaven in an event called the Rapture of the church, the translation of the church. You say, "Well, gee pastor, how do I sign up for that? Get me out of here." And the answer is only the believing will be leaving. You have to know Jesus personally by coming to him through his offer of salvation, faith alone in Christ alone. And once the church is taken to heaven, God has not forgotten his promises to national Israel. He's going to put his hand back on them and fulfill the last three feasts.

This time in belief, not unbelief, as in the spring feasts. Trumpets is when Jesus will summon the nation of Israel who has been persecuted by the Antichrist, in faith now, from the four corners of the earth, Matthew 24:31. Atonement is the specific time when the nation of Israel will recognize that we blew it. They will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, Zechariah 12:10. They will mourn on the one that they have pierced. And booths, you know what that is? That's the thousand-year millennial kingdom, Zechariah 14:16-18.

So if you want to understand the past, you want to understand what God is doing in the present, and if you want to understand what God is doing yet future, study these Israeli feasts because they typify something. And here we are with number one, Passover, celebrating it this week, pointing ultimately to Jesus as our Passover lamb. That Passover lamb was special, as we're going to study in the book of Exodus. No blemishes and none of its bones can be broken. Does that sound familiar? Jesus, of perfect character, died in our place, and they wanted to break his bones but he was already dead, John's Gospel tells us.

So what is Pharaoh saying here? He's saying, "You know, if you take away these children out of Egypt, then that's going to cut down my numbers that I need for slaves. And that's evil." Charles Ryrie sums up what Pharaoh is saying here as follows: "In response to the pleas of his servants, Pharaoh offered Moses another compromise: he would let the men go, but not their families or children, charging Moses with wanting to do evil by depriving him of such a large number of workers," close quote. It's kind of interesting that Moses is trying to do something good here, and in Pharaoh's mind, it's evil. Isn't that what the Bible says in the last days? Woe to those who call evil good and good evil. It's amazing how people can take something that's good and turn it around as something that's actually wicked or evil.

But this whole semantical game goes on, and that's just one of many issues that could be brought up where people call something evil that's actually very, very good. And that's what Pharaoh here is doing with Moses. I mean, you take these children away, that's evil because I got less slaves. Now Dr. Ed Hindson has another interpretation of verse 10 that I'll share with you. He says this is what Pharaoh's actually saying: "Many interpreters have stumbled over the explanation of this phrase. Pharaoh seems to be uncharacteristically warning Moses to beware of approaching evil. The difficulty of ascertaining Pharaoh's intent disappears, however, when one takes into account that the Hebrew word *ra* usually translated as evil is also the name of the Egyptian sun god, Ra. Each Pharaoh was considered to be Ra's divine son. The intent of Pharaoh may be conveyed as follows: 'As my god Ra is before you, your god Yahweh may be strong, but don't forget that Ra is just as strong as Yahweh.'"

In other words, he's not just charging him with evil, he's saying through the use of wordplay *ra* meaning evil, but it could also be the Egyptian sun god, Ra. My god is bigger than your god. My dad can beat up your dad. And Pharaoh's going to find out he's dead wrong. Because all of these plagues, whether it's water to blood, frogs, gnats, flies, disease on cattle, boils, and hail—every single one of these plagues that God sent was designed to mock one of the Egyptian deities in her polytheistic pantheon.

You like the Nile? You worship the Nile? I just turned it to blood red. You like frogs? I'll multiply them all over Egypt. You'll have so many frogs you won't know what to do with them. You can start to see why I entitled this sermon Divine Sarcasm. And it's true with all of these plagues. You know they worship the firstborn? God is about to—Exodus 12—kill the firstborn all over Egypt. So you think Ra is more powerful than Yahweh? I mean, that's what Pharaoh could be saying here. The sun god Ra is more powerful than the Son.

You know, when you look at Jesus, you have to understand that he is in a class by himself. What he claims about himself is not to be one among many deities, one among many options. He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. Islam says Jesus never died on the cross, did you know that? And when Jesus comes back, he's going to be kind of a sidekick of Allah. That's not what the Bible says. Jesus is not a sidekick of anybody. He's not a silent partner. He's not a consultant. He's the King of kings and the Lord of lords.

And Jesus is the only figure that's ever existed that said, "You know what? Not only am I God, I'm going to show you something. I'm going to make some predictions about my death. My death will happen, but on the third day, I'll rise from the grave." And the last time I checked, the tomb is still empty. And Jesus is the one that's coming back as the King of kings and the Lord of lords. It's a Hebrew or Greek figure of speech meaning the ultimate. It's like saying holy of holies. When you use the expression holy of holies, you're not just talking about a holy place, you're talking about the ultimate holy place, the holy place. It's called a superlative. And that's what Jesus claims about himself. He's not an option. He is the way, the truth, the life. No man comes to the Father but by him.

If you go back to verse 9, it says, "Moses said, 'We shall go with our young and our old, and with our sons and our daughters, and with our flocks and our herds.'" Pharaoh says, "You can go, the men can go." All these other categories, I'm going to hold them here as collateral. So just like the devil not wanting to relinquish authority over the earth, that's in type what Pharaoh is doing here. And it's going to cause a ton of warfare to bring Pharaoh around. Just like there's going to be a ton of warfare before planet earth is ultimately liberated from Satan's grasp. And then Moses leaves, just like he left back in verse 6. It says, "So they were driven from Pharaoh's presence." And now the plague starts to manifest.

Exodus chapter 10, verse 12. "Then the Lord said to Moses, 'Stretch out your hand over the land of Egypt for the locusts, that they may come on the land of Egypt and eat every plant of the land, even all that the hail has left.'" Notice God's sovereignty over his own creation. This plague is going to eat every plant. Isn't God the one that created the plants? Isn't that Genesis chapter 1, verse 11, "Then the Lord God said, 'Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit after their kind, with seed in them,' and it was so"?

You have to understand that when God judges, and he does judge, he has the right to do it because he's the one that brought creation into existence in the first place. Certainly the Creator, let alone the Redeemer who paid a price so humanity wouldn't have to face these kind of judgments. Certainly someone like that has the right to judge. That's what Revelation 4 and 5 are doing in your Bible. It's a scene of worship. Does God have the right to do what he's about to do in the seven-year tribulation period? And the answer is absolutely because he is the Creator, that's Revelation 4, and he is the Redeemer, that's Revelation 5.

And then also here in verse 12, moving on from verse 12 into verse 13, you see Moses' obedience. "So Moses stretched out his staff over the land of Egypt." The staff is always interesting to me because that's how God trained Moses with the staff, the shepherd's rod, going back to Exodus 4, verses 2 through 4. Moses was allowed to perform some, I guess we would say, lesser miracles through the staff.

And now what is used in a lesser sense is now being used on a big stage. This is why the Bible says do not despise the day of small beginnings. God could be training you on some minor thing in some minor area in some minor role, but you have no idea what he's going to do with your faithfulness in something small. Luke chapter 16, verse 10, says: "He who is faithful in a very little thing is also faithful in much. And he who is unrighteous in a very little thing is also unrighteous in much."

Your reputation is who people think you are. Your character is what you really do when no one's looking. That's what God looks at. He looks at the little things. Are we cutting corners in the little things? Are we making excuses in the little things? Because if we do that, it disqualifies us from being used for the big things, which we all want to do. Everybody wants to do big things for the Lord. God says, "Alright, be faithful with the little thing that no one sees that I put right in front of you." And Moses does what he's told.

That is where the blessings of the Christian life come. John 13, verse 17: "If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them." For many years of my life, I thought the blessing comes from knowing these things. And knowing things is great, but that's not where blessing in the Christian life comes from. It's when knowledge turns into wisdom, when *gnōsis* turns into *sophia*, when knowledge turns into *chokmah*. Knowledge and wisdom are two different things. Knowledge is understanding what to do, wisdom is applying it to daily life. And as you apply what you know, that's where you get blessed. And that's where Moses was.

Jonah chapter 4, verse 8: "When the sun came up, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on Jonah's head so that he became faint and begged with all of his soul to die, saying 'Death for me is better than life.'" Jonah 1, verse 4: "The Lord hurled a great wind on the sea." It's hard to fight a God that controls the weather, isn't it? Jonah 1, verse 17: "The Lord appointed a great fish." Jonah 4, verse 6: "The Lord appointed a plant." Jonah 4, verse 7: "God appointed a worm." Yeah, he does it all the time.

We kind of look at these locust judgments as something like that, just an irritation, but that's not biblical thinking. This was a sweeping, powerful, awesome judgment. Notice the number of locusts, verse 14: "They were numerous. There had never been so many locusts nor would there be so many again in Egypt." This was a complete and totally unique judgment. You notice that it created darkness. Isn't that what we're going to be thinking about on Good Friday? The Lord allowed darkness over the land as Jesus stood in the gap for us and bore his wrath in our place.

I can't think of a better way to plunge the kingdom of Pharaoh into despair than physical darkness, because that was a kingdom of spiritual darkness. Do you see the divine sarcasm? God is saying, "Do you like darkness? Do you like spiritual darkness? Do you like this polytheistic occultism that you're into? Okay, I'll give you darkness. It's just this round it's going to be physical." And there's another plague of darkness that's coming after these locusts. The sarcasm of God.

Thus nothing green was left on the tree or the plant of the field through all of the land of Egypt. Charles Ryrie of this judgment says: "One of the most destructive of creatures is locusts. A swarm may have an average density of 130 million locusts per square mile. They can denude hundreds of square miles quickly, bringing horror, despair, and terrible economic consequences to the inhabitants."

And there's only one way to receive a gift from God according to Romans 4, verses 4 and 5: it's to believe, which means to trust in the one that he has sent, in this case Jesus Christ. Jesus did something for us that we couldn't do for ourselves. He fixed our problem of original sin. And he commands us to receive what he has done as a free gift. That's what spares us from the judgments to come. That and that alone. Religion can't help you here. Jesus can help you, though. His Hebrew name is Yeshua. He is the one that all of Tanakh points to.

And so our encouragement for people, and it's not a raise a hand, walk an aisle, give money, it's nothing like that. It's just a matter of personal privacy between you and the Lord where the Lord convicts you of your need to do this, to receive his free gift. And you respond the way you know how to respond, which is to trust in that. You're no longer trusting in yourself, your abilities, your religion, your good efforts. You're trusting in the good work that he did for you 2,000 years ago. And that spares us from the wrath to come.

Father, we're grateful for your Word, grateful for your truth. Thank you for this historical record. Help us to live these things out this week, especially this week as we think about your death of your Son in our place and his bodily resurrection from the dead next Sunday morning. We'll be careful to give you all the praise and the glory. We ask these things in Jesus' name. And God's people said, amen.