Sugar Land Bible Church

Dr. Andy Woods: As the children are being dismissed for their junior church program, let's take our Bibles this morning and open them to the book of Exodus chapter 10 and verse 21. The title of our message this morning is a very familiar theme in the Bible: Light and Darkness.

Continuing our verse-by-verse look at the book of Exodus, God, as you know, is redeeming a nation—the nation of Israel—from 400 years of Egyptian bondage. He's using a man named Moses to do it, and through Moses has come the 10 plagues on the nation of Egypt. Look where we are; we're at plague number nine.

So far, we've seen Nile to blood, frogs, gnats, flies, death of livestock, boils, and hail. We saw locusts the last couple of weeks. Aren't you glad to be leaving the locusts behind? And now we have the plague of darkness.

We can study this two ways. There's two major movements here. This is in chapter 10, verses 21 through 29. The plague's manifestation, verses 21 through 23, and then once the plague comes, as typically happens, Pharaoh summons Moses for a conversation.

Notice first of all the plague's manifestation. Notice if you will God's command. Chapter 10 and verse 21 says, "The Lord said to Moses, 'Stretch out your hand towards the sky that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, even a darkness which may be felt.'"

One of the things I've tried to communicate as we've gone through the book of Exodus is so many of the judgments in the book of Exodus look like the book of Revelation. For example, that third one there, darkness, appears in the ninth plague in Exodus and in the fifth bowl judgment in the book of Revelation.

Why the parallels? Well, in the book of Exodus, God is taking a nation out of Egyptian bondage. In the book of Revelation, there's the ultimate Exodus, where God is taking the world out of the bondage that it has been in since the fall of man in Eden.

And that's why what is spoken of in the book of Revelation, we read these words in chapter 11, verse 15: "The kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He will reign forever and ever." And to be honest with you folks, I can't wait. This world just wears on you with the evil and depravity that we see all around us.

But if you're a biblical Christian, there's a new world coming. What we're experiencing now in the world is just temporary. It's just a matter of time before Satan is evicted from planet Earth. Just like here in the book of Exodus, it was just a matter of time before God would take His elect nation out of Egyptian bondage.

And He brings now this incredible plague, the plague of darkness. Darkness is spoken of frequently in Scripture, sometimes physically but sometimes spiritually as well. The Bible tells us that the entire human race, even though physically things seem visible and fine, the entire human race is in a state of spiritual darkness.

John's Gospel talks about this over and over again. Here's just a few verses from John's Gospel. It says, "This is the judgment, that Light—that's Jesus—has come into the world." And you would think that if light came into the world, people would just embrace the light.

But a funny thing happens when you're accustomed to the darkness and someone turns on the lights. What an irritation that is. And that's why our world reacted the way it did to Jesus Christ. This is the judgment, that light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light, for their deeds were evil.

For everyone who does evil hates the light and does not come to the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the light so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.

Suddenly the light comes on, and not only is it a source of irritation if you're accustomed to the darkness, but the light is not very comfortable because the light exposes everything we're doing, which formerly was covered up.

Jesus, being the ultimate spiritual light, came into our world, and the world hated Him from day one because His mere presence exposed those who love the darkness because it concealed their sin. That is an explanation why the world has always hated Jesus Christ.

It's an explanation why you, as a disciple of Christ, are hated no matter where you go. Have you noticed that? The more you try to walk with God, the more you don't really seem to fit in anywhere. And that's actually the design of God because we are the salt of the earth and the light of the world.

That's in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapter 5, verses 13 through 16. We stand out. The book of Philippians chapter 2, around verse 17, says, "as lights in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation."

As you walk with the Lord and you start to get pushback because of it, sometimes from your own family, sometimes God forbid from your own church, sometimes from coworkers, don't think as if some strange thing was happening to you. This is the function of light. Light reveals, light exposes, and those accustomed to the darkness don't necessarily like the light.

And of course, what you see happening here in these various judgments is the sarcasm of God. God is extremely sarcastic. What better way to end Pharaoh's reign, a reign of total moral darkness, than to just shut off the light and say if you like darkness that much, if you like spiritual darkness like you do, if you want to persecute the nation of Israel, if you want to worship these various Egyptian deities, if you want to have around you these magicians that traffic in the occult, if you like spiritual darkness that much, then God says, let me just push this over the edge and take it all the way here, and I'll bring darkness to the Egyptian Empire.

This explains why in one of the bowl judgments, this would be the fifth bowl judgment in the book of Revelation, the Beast's empire, yet future, will end in darkness. Revelation chapter 16 and verse 10 says, "The fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and his kingdom became darkened; and they gnawed their tongues because of the pain."

How fitting it is to end the kingdom of the Antichrist, the ultimate prince of darkness, in darkness itself. The sarcasm of God. What's interesting about the darkness that we're reading about here is it was so dark in Egypt that it could actually be felt.

I mean, how do you feel darkness? But there it is at the end of verse 21 of chapter 10. It says, "even a darkness which may be felt." Now, when you're watching these shows on cable television—the History Channel, A&E, Mysteries of the Bible—and they bring on someone from Harvard to sort of make it sound like these things that happened in the Exodus event really weren't miracles.

I mean, this was just an eclipse, they say. I've seen them say that. "Just an eclipse." Well, what do you do with this passage here that says the darkness was felt? That communicates something supernatural. I mean, this was not cloud covering or normal weather patterns.

This was a judgment of God that was so severe to the point where you could actually feel the darkness. And how do you feel darkness? Charles Ryrie says "darkness which may be felt" is possibly—and I can't be dogmatic about this—but possibly a combination of a violent sandstorm and supernatural darkness.

And what God is doing here, as He is with all of these judgments, is He's challenging various Egyptian deities. And the deities that are being challenged here with this plague of darkness are three: Ra, Horus, and Atum.

Ed Hindson writes this concerning chapter 10, verse 21: "The chief Egyptian deity challenged by this plague was Pharaoh's own divine father, Ra, the sun god, and the high god of the pantheon. This is surely a response to Pharaoh's previous question of Yahweh's power, that of Ra." And then he says, "Shu and Nut, the respective sky god and goddess, would have been yet again shown to be impotent before the Lord."

I mean, you want to worship the sun? Not the Son—the S-O-N—but the S-U-N sun. Let's see how well that does for you as I turn the lights out, so to speak, all over Egypt. And you might remember what Pharaoh said back in verse 10. He actually issued a challenge.

He said, "Thus says the Lord, be with you if ever I let you go, your little ones go. Take heed, for evil is in your mind." That's what Pharaoh is saying to Moses. And when we were back in verse 10, I gave you this quote from Ed Hindson in his commentary on the book of Exodus.

The intent of Pharaoh may be conveyed as, "My god Ra is before you. Your god Yahweh may be strong, but don't forget that Ra is just as strong." Now, that's what Pharaoh is saying to Moses as he's sending Moses away. Ra is just as strong as Yahweh. Want to bet?

Keep reading. God says "no light" all over Egypt. So we know at the end who has the power. God does, and He launches a direct broadside on one of the great deities within the Egyptian pantheon. And this much I know about God: He hates idols.

God is going to take His children, the nation of Israel, to Mount Sinai and He's going to put them under the law. And all you have to do is read the first two commandments in the Decalogue, and it's a direct attack on idolatry.

"You shall have no other gods before me, like this sun god that you were subjected to. You shall not make for yourself an idol or any likeness of what is above or on the earth beneath or in the water or under the earth." God hates idolatry. He hates the worship of things that are above and beyond Him.

Isaiah chapter 42 and verse 8 says, "I am the Lord, that is my name; I will not give my glory to another, nor my praise to graven images." A lot of people kind of look at Jesus as if He's just one of the gang. He's just one among many gods. You know, there's the sun god, and there's the Nile god, and there's the frog god, and then there's Jesus.

Nothing could be further from the truth. When Jesus returns, it says this of Him in Revelation 19, verse 16: "And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, 'King of Kings, and Lord of Lords.'" In language, we call that a superlative, meaning the ultimate.

It's like saying "holy of holies." When you use the expression "holy of holies," you're using a superlative. You're not talking about a holy place; you're talking about the quintessential holy place, the ultimate holy place.

And the superlative is used of Jesus Christ in Revelation 19, verse 16. He is not a king among many kings; He is the King of kings. And He is not a lord among many lords; He is the Lord of lords. He is the ultimate Lord.

If the Bible isn't clear on this, it's not clear on anything. And I hope Jesus in your mind is a separate category than anything else people worship. He is the one that spoke and heaven and earth leaped into existence. No other alleged deity did that.

He is the one that when creation went awry through rebellion, He stepped out of eternity into time and absorbed the wrath of a holy God in our place. And He is the one who's coming back to reign as King of kings and Lord of lords, and you won't be able to vote Him out of office.

No opinion poll is going to matter because He's going to rule planet Earth with a rod of iron. He is the Creator, He is the Redeemer, and He is the coming King and Judge. I'm a little troubled by people throwing the word "Jesus" around a lot.

A lot of times people throw the word "Jesus" around as profanity, but even when they don't use it as profanity, I'm wondering if they really understand who this is. He's not a business guru; He's not a CEO, although He could be all of those things. He's not a consultant, He's not a role model for good behavior, although He could be all of those things also.

I mean, we're dealing with the King of kings and the Lord of lords. A name above, as Paul in Philippians 2 tells us, that's above every name. And if there's something else in our hearts that is competing with that, God will take aim at it and He'll keep working on you over and over again until that issue gets resolved because an idol is really anything in our lives that takes supremacy over God.

It could be a talent, treasure, abilities, the way you look, your connections. All of those things are God-given and they're meant to be understood as God-given and they're meant to have their rightful place under the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ.

But the human heart, in its wickedness and its depravity, has a tendency to elevate such things above Jesus. And Jesus, when His children become that way, He moves them very fast into discipline and wants to straighten out their thinking, just like He's straightening out Egypt here with these different plagues.

So there's a command given to Moses, and then Moses, of course, obeys the command. Verse 22: "So Moses stretched out his hand toward the sky, and there was thick darkness in all the land of Egypt for three days." Verse 23: "They did not see one another, nor did anyone rise from his place for three days."

You have to understand that when it keeps saying Moses did what God told him to do, it took God 40 years in shrinking Moses down to about nothing to get him to this place where he's just willing to obey God. Everything God says, he does.

But he wasn't like that in the first 40 years of his life. Moses is the man you remember that murdered the Egyptian that he saw abusing the Hebrew, and that caused him to flee into Midian. And so Moses at age 40 was used to doing things his own way.

And God gave him in the next 40 years of his life, age 40 to age 80, through shepherding in Midian, menial labor, shepherding his flock of his father-in-law Jethro, God gave Moses what I call his B.D. degree—his Backside of the Desert degree.

Where Moses was emptied of Moses. I mean, the problem with God using Moses was there was too much Moses. So let's kind of take your pride and your self-sufficiency and let's reduce it. And then finally at age 80, with the burning bush that he saw, he's ready for ministry. See that?

That's how God works. Works that way in all of our lives. He's worked that way in my life; He continues to work that way in my life. And He's getting us to a point where we just say to the Lord, "You know what? My ways are not really working out too well; I'm going to do exactly what You tell me to do."

And so when you see these statements in Exodus chapter 10 about how Moses did what God said—Moses stretched out his hand toward heaven or the sky, etc.—you have to understand that this is coming after 40 years of character refinement.

But through this process of character refinement, Moses learned the blessings of obedience. Obedience in the Christian life is the key towards being blessed in the Christian life. I used to think that knowledge was the end game. I mean, the more I knew about God, the more blessed I was.

And there is a certain blessing in learning about the things of God. But if you really want the blessed life, then it's a life that is submissive to the will of God. I'm not arguing that we become sinless, but a life that is sinning less.

Jesus' own mother, in His first miracle there at the top of the screen where He changed water to wine, it says His mother said to the servants, "Whatever He says to you, do it." Remember they ran out of wine and social embarrassment? They had no idea how this situation was going to get fixed.

And she just makes a statement to these wine stewards that "whatever He tells you to do, do it." And they did and they were blessed. John 13 and verse 17: After Jesus got down on His hands and knees and washed the feet of His disciples, He made this statement in the Upper Room.

He says, "If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them." He didn't say you're blessed if you know them, because they knew something now about Christ that they didn't know before. But as that lifestyle of servanthood began to be emulated in their lives, He says that's where the blessing comes from—not the knowing but the doing.

And of course, you know James chapter 1, verse 22: "Prove yourselves to be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves." One of the weaknesses of being a Bible church that's so focused on Bible teaching is people get the misguided idea that spirituality is based on how much you know.

Knowing things is critical. But it never was intended as an end game. Gnosis—knowledge—has to turn into Sophia—wisdom. Wisdom is application. The Hebrews called wisdom Hokmah, which is not just the acquisition of knowledge; it's the application of knowledge.

You start applying knowledge to daily life, now you're walking in Sophia or you're walking in what the Hebrew word is Hokmah. And if you want a good book that talks about how to apply the principles of God to daily life, the book of Proverbs is your book.

It'll tell you every imaginable thing that you could possibly face in this life: family, relationships, emotions, finances. I mean, you name it, it's all there in the book of Proverbs. It's all about application, application, application. And that's where you start to see blessing in the Christian life. This is where Moses was, but it was sort of a long time for him coming.

You look at the second part there, verse 22 into verse 23, and it talks about the severity of this plague. I mean, how bad was this plague of darkness? It says, "There was a thick darkness in the land of Egypt for three days. They did not see one another, nor did anyone rise from his place for three days."

And you say, "Well, Pastor, what's the secret meaning to three days?" You guys ready for this? When you see "three days" in the Bible, it means three days. It's yom, the plural, day or days, with a number. And when you see that combination, it always refers to a literal time period.

I mean, no one would look at this and say, "Well, that really means three billion years." But people in Genesis, with the same Hebrew structure—first day, second day, third day—they do this in Genesis all of the time because they're trying to fit Genesis in with evolution, trying to get the perspective of people that are trying to explain creation that weren't even there, that are developing theories in the darkness of their own mind.

And we're so impressed by these people that what we want to do is try to make the Bible fit their new philosophy of the day. And in the process, we're just rewriting the Bible. We're compromising it. And not compromising it in an irrelevant area; it's the foundation of the Bible.

Psalm 11 and verse 3 says, "If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?" I mean, the foundation is the most important part of the house. It's not the color of the walls or the wallpaper or the furniture. If the foundation isn't right, then the house will suffer.

I've shared with you our house in the Dallas area; we would wake up in the morning and there would be a crack right through the wall that wasn't there before. And it wasn't the carpet's color that caused it; it was the foundation issue, which is kind of notorious for houses in the Dallas area.

And the foundation is a big deal. And if you rewrite the foundation of the Bible, the whole Bible collapses. I mean, if Adam did not fall into sin and lead to a life of constant sin terminated by death, if that didn't happen exactly like God says it happened, then the point of a Savior doesn't make any sense.

The better you understand early Genesis, the better you understand the need for salvation. Jesus came into the world to undo the damage brought into the world by the first Adam. He did it as the last Adam. But there's no need for a last Adam if the first Adam didn't mess everything up.

I say this with a grieving heart because the number one topic that they're discussing today in the Evangelical Theological Society, which is supposed to be the elite among the elite of evangelical scholars—I mean, what's consuming their time? It's the historicity of Adam.

I'm not talking about just liberals; I'm talking about evangelicals. And their whole topic is: Was Adam really a person? Was he really a human being? Well, I've got a question: Was Jesus a real person? He's the last Adam. Was He a real human being?

I mean, be careful what you're doing with early Genesis because from early Genesis the whole house of Christianity is erected. And if you compromise in early Genesis, you're going to compromise everywhere else.

If six days doesn't mean six days, then maybe three days over here doesn't mean three days over here. And it leads to silliness and the superstitions and the philosophies of man.

So this plague is very severe, but you'll notice end of verse 23 that the Israelites, the Hebrews living in Goshen, were exempted from this. "But all the sons of Israel had light in their dwellings." So the unbelievers, the pagans, the Egyptians, they went into darkness, but not God's people.

They had light. That in and of itself shows you that this is supernatural. Ed Hindson writes, "Proponents of the miraculous intensification of natural events theory—this is just an eclipse mentality—propose that the darkness resulted from the arrival of a blinding sandstorm.

This does not take into consideration, however, that the darkness began at the discretion of Moses. See that? These aren't naturalistic events. Moses is saying it's going to start here and it's going to end over there. It's going to start tomorrow and it's going to end when you repent, Pharaoh.

We've seen that in a number of these judgments. This does not take into consideration, however, that the darkness began at the discretion of Moses or the continued distinction the Lord made between Goshen and the remainder of Egypt. Although the entire nation suffered in suffocating pitch-black darkness, the Hebrews in Goshen had retained their sunlight."

By the way, the events of the Tribulation period, which thankfully we will not be here to see—amen?—the same kind of thing is going to happen. The plagues are going to come upon people that have received the mark of the beast, and in some of these judgments—I don't know all of them—but those that had not received the mark of the beast are spared.

So as Solomon has told us in Ecclesiastes chapter 1, verse 9, "what has been will be again." And that's the right way to understand the book of Exodus. It's sort of a type or a microcosm of things on the horizon that are coming. Don't look at the book of Exodus like it's a history lesson only. It is a history lesson, but it contains within it typology that is yet to be played out on planet Earth.

So here is the world of Egypt in darkness, but God's people have light. Doesn't that describe you? Jesus in John chapter 8, verse 12—by the way, Jesus in John's Gospel made seven "I AM" statements. He said, "I am the bread of life," number one.

Number three, "I am the gate for the sheep." "I am the good shepherd." "I am the resurrection and the life." "I am the way, the truth, and the life." "I am the true vine." On the right-hand column, you can find all of those verses where Jesus made that statement.

And number two out of the gate is "I am the light of the world." That's in John chapter 8 and verse 12. It says, "Then Jesus again spoke to them, saying, 'I am'—which as you know is a reference to a divine title. 'I am,' in Greek 'egō eimi,' is a name that was only given to God."

Comes from Exodus 3, verse 14, when Moses says to God at the burning bush, "Who shall I say sent me?" "Tell them I AM sent you," the self-existing One. When Jesus keeps saying "I am, I am, I am," He's claiming God's title.

So this talk about how Jesus was a good guy but He never claimed to be God—pure biblical illiteracy to say something like that. You know, you wonder the people that make statements like that if they've ever read the Bible at all.

But number two out of the gate is "I am the light of the world." John 8, verse 12: "Then Jesus spoke and said to them, 'I am the light of the world. He who follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life.'" You walk with Jesus, you're in spiritual light in a world that's in spiritual darkness.

And isn't it interesting that you know the longest Psalm in the psalter? Anybody know what the longest Psalm in the psalter is? It's Psalm 119. And the reason it's the longest Psalm in the psalter is because it takes the first eight letters of the Hebrew alphabet and with each letter it begins with that letter, a word, and then it has a line.

And then it goes to the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet and the next letter. So the first eight verses are the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The next eight verses are the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet, all beginning with the same letter.

The next eight verses are the third letter of the Hebrew alphabet. So it goes eight lines times 22—I think there's 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet. And that's why when you read Psalm 119, if you're on a one-year Bible program, it's so long.

The reason it's long is it's an acrostic Psalm. And you ever asked yourself: What is that Psalm about? I used to think it was about the Word of God. But that's not even accurate; it's about Torah—the first part of Hebrew Bible, which is the law.

Meditation upon the law, meditation upon the law of God and the blessings that it will bring into your life. It is very interesting to me that the longest Psalm in the psalter is Psalm 119 and it's a Torah Psalm.

And in the midst of all of that, you get to Psalm 119, verse 105, and it says, "Thy word is a lamp to my feet." Amy Grant sang about that. I'm going to sing right now—no, I won't do that. "Thy word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path."

I mean, why is the world walking around in darkness? Because they reject God's Word. Why is it that you understand things that the world can't understand? Because you respect God's Word.

And you don't even have to respect all of God's Word—you should—to receive this lamp or this light. All you've got to do is respect the Law, the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy!

I mean, if I study Deuteronomy, I can walk in light? That's what Psalm 119, verse 105 says. Do you know Jesus three times in the temptations when He was pushed to the furthest degree a person has ever been pushed in the area of satanic temptation?

You'll see it in Luke 4, 1 through 13; Matthew 4, verses 1 through 11. He warded off each temptation through citations from memory from the book of Deuteronomy. To be frank with you folks, most Christians have never even read the book of Deuteronomy. And yet there's this light that's available.

You give yourself to the book of Deuteronomy, you give yourself to the first five books, and you're walking in light. You're in light while the world is walking around, stumbling around, in spiritual darkness.

God is light. You better get used to it because one of these days we'll be in the eternal state. Revelation 21 and 22. Have you ever looked at the things that won't be in the eternal state? No Satan, no sea, no death, crying, mourning, or pain. No temple, no evil, no curse.

And right in the middle of that description, Revelation 22, verse 5: no sun—S-U-N—because the Son—S-O-N—will be the source of light. Kind of like in early Genesis, Genesis 1, verse 3. God says "let there be light" and there was light.

"Wait a minute, God, the sun hasn't come into existence yet. The sun, S-U-N, hasn't come into existence until day four." So how is there light without the sun? God says, "Not a problem; I'm light. My very presence is light; I don't need some sort of secondary agent or element to create light."

And so in the eternal state, there's no sun, S-U-N, because we have the Son, S-O-N, who is the source of light. There's no need for a moon either, Revelation 21:23, because all the moon does is reflect the sunlight.

You know Jesus said that, didn't He, in Matthew 24, when He's describing the events of the Tribulation period? He makes this really interesting statement in Matthew 24: "The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light."

You know throughout history people thought that the sun and the moon both were light sources. But Jesus makes a statement that's way ahead of His time. He says the sun will go out and the moon will not radiate the light anymore.

I mean, who do You think You are, Jesus? The Designer of this whole thing or something? I mean, you stick with the Bible, folks, you're just like so far ahead. Pardon the expression, you're light-years ahead.

And then one I don't have underlined here is there's no night in the eternal state. There's no night because there's no sun or moon anymore because Jesus is always present.

It says, "In the daytime, for there will be no night there, its gates will never be closed." Revelation 21:23 says, "And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illuminated it, and its lamp is the Lamb."

Why are things this way? Because God Himself is light. First Timothy 6, verse 16: of God it says, "who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see."

God is light. Not Ra or any of these fake deities, and God is showing Himself this way through these various plagues. And then, of course, when a judgment like this hits—this is the ninth time this has happened—Pharaoh wants a conference call with Moses because he sees Moses as the problem.

Moses is the servant of Yahweh who's bringing these judgments upon Egypt. Pharaoh himself recognizes this, and he tries always, Pharaoh—I feel sorry for him in a certain sense—he's always trying to strike a deal. "I've got to do what I've got to do to get this judgment called off, because this is the finger of God. I mean, my own sorcerers and magicians can't do this; this has got to be the hand of God."

And you would think that he would just repent. But he doesn't. He persists in stubbornness. So that's in verses 24 through 29: Moses and—I think it's Aaron—they enter the picture. Verse 24, actually just Moses. Aaron's not mentioned here, although Aaron is at Moses' side for most of these.

Verse 24: "Then Pharaoh called to Moses," which is the third time this has happened in this chapter. Verse 3, verse 8, verse 16, and now it's happening again. And Pharaoh gives a command.

Verse 24: "And said, 'Go and serve the Lord.'" So far so good. "Go and serve." "Go," liberation from bondage, and "serve." Is that not a prototype of the Christian life? First of all, we're set free by Jesus.

We're not saved by our good works, but we're certainly saved unto good works, where God wants to take my liberated life and use it for His glory. Wow. "God, You'd do a much better job without me." And God says, "I know that, but I'm choosing to work this way. I've set you free because I want to use you as an instrument of blessing unto other people."

Go and serve. First of all, go, meaning leave Egyptian bondage. John 8, verse 32: Jesus says you will know the truth and the truth will make you miserable—doesn't say that. "You will know the truth and the truth will set you free."

John 8, verse 36: "So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed." Second Corinthians 3, verse 17, says, "Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." Not bondage and misery and self-doubt and self-condemnation, but freedom.

I love that movie *The Awakening*. I love the fact that they mention the scripture verse there in Leviticus, I believe it's chapter 25, inscribed on our Liberty Bell: "Proclaim freedom to the captives." Understanding that God on the year of Jubilee set the nation free from finances—financial debt.

All debts were cancelled. You're free! Could you imagine that? All your credit card bills, your mortgage, gone. That's a picture of what Jesus does for people when they place their trust in Him. Now, don't send me your credit card bills or anything.

Galatians 5, verse 1 says, "It was for freedom that Christ set us free. Therefore keep standing firm and don't be subject again to a yoke of slavery." Why would I go back to slavery when I'm free? Why would I go back to my chains when I've been set free?

Pharaoh here has really good theology: go, liberty, and serve. God would take Israel out of Egyptian bondage; He would bring them to Sinai, and He would give them the tools at Sinai for service unto the Lord. That's what the Lord has for us.

Ephesians 2, verses 8 through 10 says, "For by grace you have been saved through faith; that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one can boast. 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 interesting that when you study this in Greek, it's the Greek word peripateō. The verb, it's in the subjunctive mood there, meaning that's the mood of possibility. In other words, good works are not automatic, but they're desired.

And if you don't do good works, it doesn't cancel verses 8 and 9. But why not just go all the way with God? I mean, Lord, You've set me free; what do You want to do with my life? You're the boss; I'll listen to You.

You open the doors. You provide the opportunities, instead of me always trying to kick doors down. I'm really good at that, by the way—trying to kick down doors that aren't open for me. I have like a PhD in that one. Instead of always trying to do that, Lord, You open the door. You be the boss.

You're just amazed at what God will start to do through, in, and through your life as we submit to Him as vessels that have been set free. Why? "It's reasonable," Paul says in Romans 12, verse 1, "to offer your body as a living sacrifice."

God is not saying, "If you don't offer your body as a living sacrifice, then I'm going to rip the carpet out from under you and you're going to go to hell." A lot of people teach Christian doctrine that way. I don't think it's biblical.

Paul doesn't say if you don't submit to Christ as a Christian, your freedom—your original salvation—is cancelled. What he says is it's logical, it's reasonable to offer your body as a living sacrifice given the fact that you have been set free from the tyranny of sin. That's what's reasonable.

Go and serve. But here comes the qualification. This is where we say that Pharaoh is not being authentic. "Then Pharaoh called to Moses and said, 'Go and serve the Lord; only let your flocks and your herds be detained; but even your little ones may go.'"

Take the kids, but I keep the flocks, is what Pharaoh is saying here, which is actually a step up when you think about it because Pharaoh earlier in Exodus chapter 10, verse 10, I think it is—I'm sorry, Exodus 10, verse 9 and verse 11, when you study those out, you'll see that in the last judgment, He said the kids can't go. The kids stay with me.

Now he's loosening his grip a little more and he's saying the kids can go. It's just the animals stay with me. So what you're seeing with Pharaoh is as each judgment hits, his grip on Israel gets a little looser. See that?

That is a prototype of what's happening in the book of Revelation, as God is taking this entire world out of the satanic bondage that it has been in ever since the fall in Eden. Satan's got a grip on this whole thing, and as every judgment hits, this is why it's parallel to what you see in Exodus: Satan's grip gets a little looser.

And this process continues until finally Satan's grip is gone, just like Pharaoh's grip here will be gone. Where we'll read these words: "The kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He, not Satan, will reign forever and ever, and the bondage that the world is in is now a thing of the past and Satan is in the abyss."

But it's a process that God is taking humanity and the devil through. You see this same process with Pharaoh. The locusts: the kids can't go. Plague of darkness: okay, the kids can go, but the flocks stay with me.

You see Moses' rebuttal to this, verses 25 and 26: "But Moses said, 'You must also let us have the sacrifices and burnt offerings that we may sacrifice them to the Lord our God. Therefore our livestock too shall go with us; not a hoof shall be left behind; for we shall take some of them to serve the Lord our God.'"

If we can't bring the animals with us, then we can't do the animal sacrifices, which the Lord has called us to do as is developed in the Mosaic Law, the book of Leviticus, etc. So when you tell us the flocks are detained as collateral, you're negating the animal sacrifices that we have to do.

And we have to have animal sacrifices because we can't have a tabernacle functioning without animal sacrifices. And we can't have Yom Kippur, which is coming, where the blood of the sacrificed animal is applied to the mercy seat and God—it's all described in Leviticus 16—will pass over the nation's accountability for sin for a year.

And of course, all of this points to Jesus, right? I mean, all of these things are but shadows and types of the ultimate reality that's coming—Jesus Christ. I mean, John the Baptist, John chapter 1, verse 29, saw Jesus coming and he said, "Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world."

I mean, if you don't let us have the animals, Pharaoh, then we don't have a personification of Jesus Christ. When Adam and Eve sinned, Genesis 3, verse 7, they clothed themselves. They made garments and—I don't know if it says skin, but they made some kind of covering and they clothed themselves.

Genesis chapter 3, verse 7 says the eyes of both of them were opened and they knew that they were naked. There it is: they sewed fig leaves—not skin—together and made themselves loin coverings. That, beloved, is the first act of religion recorded in the Bible.

It's man's attempt to earn right standing before God through his own religious efforts. And then you get to Genesis 3, verse 21, where it says, "The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and Eve—Adam and his wife—and clothed them."

You will not be made right with me by covering yourself; you will be made right with me because I will cover you through animal skins. You ever asked yourself: Where did those come from, these animal skins? Did they just drop out of the sky?

I mean, obviously what God did right there on the spot is He took an animal and He killed it right there. And that was a shock to their system because they didn't even know what death was like up to this point. God is showing them the severity of their actions.

They saw an animal killed, and God took the skins from that dead animal and clothed them. Well, what did the animal do that was wrong? Nothing. That's the point. God covered them through the transaction of an innocent scapegoat that died in their place.

And if you won't come to God that way, you ain't coming. See that? That's why you go to Genesis 4 and you see that you've got Cain and Abel, and the Lord looked with favor on Abel's sacrifice but He didn't look with favor on Cain's sacrifice. Well, why is that?

Well, because Cain came from bringing the fruit of the ground. He didn't come through blood of an innocent scapegoat. He was just coming to God on his own terms. And God said it's unacceptable. But Abel came honoring this animal sacrificial system, and God looked with favor on Abel and He looked with, might we say, rejection on Cain.

That's the difference between religion and atonement. People all the time are trying to do kind of the Frank Sinatra approach to spirituality: "I did it my way." "Look at all of my good works, Lord." The Lord says, "I don't care, and I'm uninterested. In fact, your whole presentation is a big fat bore."

"What I'm interested in is my Son's righteousness applied to you at the point of faith alone in Christ alone. And by the way, that was paid for by the ultimate innocent scapegoat, Jesus Christ, 'Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the whole world.'"

So all of this stuff that's about to come into existence at Sinai points to that. And when Pharaoh says you can't have the animals, it's denying the typology that God is going to set up pointing to Jesus.

Hebrews 9 and verse 22 says without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness. And there's about to be a big one sacrificed in Exodus 12; it's called the Passover Lamb. Exodus 12, verse 5: Your lamb—which Pharaoh won't let them have at this point—shall be an unblemished male a year old; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats.

The animal that will be used in Passover has to be unblemished. No genetic defects whatsoever. That's Jesus, who lived a perfect life in our place. Not because of willpower—He had willpower, obviously—but because He was God in human flesh.

You take away the deity of Christ, you take away a perfect sacrifice. You take away the virgin birth, for example, and Jesus was born naturally into our world, then He had a sin nature. If He had a sin nature, He couldn't qualify to be our perfect sacrifice. See that?

He's got to be unblemished. Oh, and by the way, when you roll this out, Exodus 12, verse 46, nor are you to break any bone of it. Does that not sound familiar? Isn't that Psalm 22? Zechariah 12, Isaiah 53?

If those verses don't speak of it directly, they certainly hint at it. But I believe it's the strongest in Psalm 22, verses 16 through 18, where not one bone of Christ would be broken.

And dying on the cross was horrific because they would push themselves upward—the victims of the crucifixion—to grab their next breath. You died of suffocation. And because they wanted to get these people off the cross and down so we can get to business with celebrating Passover—not understanding that the whole Passover pointed to what they wanted off the cross. It's unbelievable.

What you did is you go to the victims of the crucifixion and you just break their legs. If your legs are broken, you can't push yourself up for your next breath and you die of suffocation faster. And you know how it worked out with Jesus: they came to break His legs, but He was already dead. So they didn't break His legs.

Why didn't they break His legs? Because if they broke His legs, it would have violated all of this typology that Pharaoh won't let them even set up. See that? This is why God's hand has to move on Pharaoh and He's got to deal with him, because if you take away the nation's ability to take animals with them to use in the sacrificial system, if you take that away, all of the typology pointing to Jesus Christ is taken away and John the Baptist can't say, "Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the entire world."

So this is a bit of a crisis. So how is this crisis going to get resolved? Well, you've got to come back next week to find out. But at least at this point, we see the difference between religion and atonement, don't we?

I mean, you might be here today because you think that your presence here is something that's needed to make you right before God. The difference between religion and Christianity is religion is man's attempt to climb up to God through his own power. Christianity is God reaching down to man in the person of Jesus Christ, saying, "Receive what I have done as a gift."

Christianity is not a "doing" system. Christianity is a "done" system. It's done. It's finished. Christ's final words on the cross were "it is finished," a translation from the Greek word *tetelestai*, meaning paid in full. It's not God bought lunch, now I need to leave the tip. If that's what you think Christianity is, you don't understand Christianity.

You might fit real well in some other religious system, but not biblical Christianity. So I would encourage as many people as I can within the sound of my voice to place their personal trust in Jesus, accepting what He did for you 2,000 years ago as a free gift.

And if you don't want to come to God that way, you can go sit in the corner with Cain and be angry, right? May God help us to understand these basic ideas. Let's pray.

Father, we're grateful for the animal sacrificial system which points so clearly to Jesus Christ, and help us to understand these basic ideas. We're grateful for Your hand moving in our lives to loosen up our own stubbornness, and we're grateful for how You're dealing with Pharaoh here. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.